


Occam's Razor

by MissAnnThropic



Series: Occam's Razor [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:38:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 49,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2529257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAnnThropic/pseuds/MissAnnThropic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles goes to sleep, he’s a junior in high school.  He wakes up in a world where he’s twenty-four and married to Derek Hale.  Stiles just can’t seem to catch a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posting: I do not consent to have my fics posted to other websites (such a Goodreads).

Something wasn’t right.

The realization dawned on Stiles the way the actual dawn broke, slow and encroaching by degrees. It wasn’t a jolt to awareness that came with finding himself kidnapped and thrown into a basement or tied to a chair. Sadly, he had experience with both. So he knew this ‘something’ wasn’t on the order of ‘wrong’ as that… but something was still off in the world of Stiles Stilinski.

It niggled at the back of his brain, as if to say ‘hey, Stiles, man… I know you’re sleeping, and it’s a really nice sleep, so no hurry or anything, but when you have time, just fyi, something’s not right.’

That creeping sense of wrong made Stiles want to cling to sleep as long as humanly possible. Because he hated it when things went wrong. And boy, they sure seemed to a lot. It was cozy in his semi-conscious doze, warm and heavy and flavored with the remnants of dreams.

Waking up and facing this ‘something wrong’ was not high on his list of enjoyable activities.

He might have stubbornly stayed asleep for a good hour yet, ‘something wrong’ could suck it for all he cared, were it not for the intrusion of his alarm.

Well no, not _his_ alarm, because his alarm didn’t sound like that. Exhibit 1 of Something Wrong.

Exhibits 2 and 3 slammed into his brain with all the grace of a wrecking ball.

The bed under him shifted when _someone else in it_ moved. Someone, sounding very much male, grunted and turned off the alarm before settling back on the mattress behind Stiles.

Stiles jerked his head up and looked over…

To find none other than Derek Hale in bed next to him. Sleeping next to him. Sleeping _naked_ next to him.

Stiles yelped and lunged backward across the bed. Or would have, if there had been enough bed to lunge on. Instead, he executed an ungainly vault off the edge, hit his forehead on the nightstand, and dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.

Then it was really more about the pain in his face. It hurt. _A lot_. Who had steel nightstands? Because it felt like he’d rung his bell on something far harder than wood. Like, attack of the adamantium bedroom furniture. He brought a hand to his face and it came back red with blood.

“Stiles?” A bedside lamp clicked on. Derek sat up in bed and looked down at him, stunned and groggy and totally still naked.

Which, _holy shit_ , Stiles was, too. 

The discovery of the latter had Stiles coming full circle to completely freaking out. He made a noise like a cornered moose and scrambled for a sheet or a shirt or _something_ , anything to cover up his manly bits, but it was hard to concentrate with his thoughts racing and blood running into his eye.

Suddenly, Derek was crouching in front of him. Still totally naked. Stiles did his best Serenade of the Dying Cat and kind of flailed when Derek reached out to examine his face. There were two more penises on display than their friendship really called for, but Derek didn’t even seem to notice as he squinted at Stiles’ injury.

“Shit… that looks bad. You probably need stitches.”

Yeah, probably. And the name of whatever drug he must have taken the night before to wake up to _this_. Alice in Wonderland would trip balls on that shit, because who gave a fuck about rabbits and hatters when the shit he’d been roofied with caused one to wake up naked in bed with a werewolf?

“Stay here,” Derek ordered, and Stiles wondered where else he’d go with a bleeding head wound and no clothes. Although, if he spotted a door, he might make a break for it, bloody and buck-naked be damned.

Really, he could just regroup and gather his wits nude and bloody on some nice, friendly street corner. Just hopefully not a street corner near a playground.

An overhead light came on and Stiles blinked at a room he did not recognize. It wasn’t his. It wasn’t Derek’s. Really, he had no fucking clue where he was. Just _a_ bedroom. He could say that much because there was a bed and he’d been sleeping in it. 

That was as much as he could figure out at a glance, but to be fair – head injury.

Derek pushed a folded towel into his hand, and Stiles put it to his face to sop up some of the blood. Not having blood trickling into his eye made watching Derek and hoping for a clue easier, at least.

Derek was moving around the room with confidence. This might be a strange room to Stiles, but clearly it was not unfamiliar to Derek. But it was definitely not the loft. That place had an industrial half-finished chic going on, and this room looked normal. Like a bedroom in a regular house. But whose house, and where?

Derek threw on jeans and a shirt (thank fuck), then he came at Stiles with a pair of sweat pants and a shirt. Stiles recognized the shirt. It was his. He’d know that ugly lime green monstrosity anywhere, though he didn’t remember it being so damn faded. The logo was practically gone.

“Here,” Derek squatted next to him with the clothes. “Can you put these on?” Derek seemed to think that he couldn’t. “Let me help.” He started to reach for Stiles’ legs or hips or _something_.

“Gahh!” Stiles grabbed the clothes and swatted Derek away. “Don’t… I’m naked!”

It was, admittedly, not the manliest Stiles had ever sounded in his life.

Derek sat back and gave Stiles a strange look. A look that Stiles tried to ignore as he put down the towel so he could stand up and scramble into the sweats as quickly as possible. Since time was of the essence, of course the moment he got to his feet he staggered and wobbled.

Derek reached out to steady him, but while Derek might be clothed Stiles was still very much bare-ass and dangling in the breeze, and he squawked and side-stepped out of range… even though it did mean crashing into the nightstand and guaranteeing himself a killer bruise.

“I’m good… I’m good!” Stiles rambled, just to make Derek back the fuck away from his general nakedness.

Derek looked uncertain but eventually moved away.

By the time Stiles had gotten the sweats and shirt on in the most uninspiring rendition of Stiles Knows How to Dress Himself ever, Derek was on the phone.

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m going to be late coming in this morning. I need to take Stiles to the hospital.” A pause. “No, he’s… he woke up, did a swan-dive out of bed, and hit his head on the nightstand. He’s bleeding pretty bad… looks like he’s going to need stitches.” The person on the other end said something to make Derek’s mouth twitch. “You and me both.” Stiles had a sneaking suspicion it was at his expense. “Of course, I’ll text you when we get there.”

“Who was that?” Stiles asked as he picked the towel back up and pressed it to his wound. At least the bleeding was slacking off.

“Dad.”

“Your dad?” Stiles gawked. “I thought he was dead.”

Derek looked at him. Oh, shit… that was the ‘Stiles, you are really starting to worry me’ look. He got that a lot with that fucking nogitsune. He hated that look.

“Nooo…” Derek said slowly, like he was talking to a not-very-bright child. Or a mental patient. “ _Your_ dad.”

“My dad? Why would you call my dad? Why would you call my dad ‘Dad’? Wait… you said ‘it’s me’ just now. On the phone. Not like ‘hey, this is Derek’, or ‘yo, Mr. Stilinski, sourwolf here’…”

“Stiles… are you okay?”

Stiles looked up in the general direction of his bleeding head wound in an unspoken ‘duh, obviously not’.

Derek’s eyebrows pinched together, then he shook his head. “Come on, let’s go get you checked out.”

It was still early, and Derek didn’t seem to feel the need to turn on lights in this house – whoever’s house it was – so Stiles didn’t see much of it before he was ushered outside.

Onto a street in a neighborhood he didn’t immediately recognize, leaving a house he didn’t know, led to a car he had never seen before. It was a four-door Honda that looked far too sensible to be Derek’s, and yet Derek opened the driver’s side door and got behind the wheel.

Dumbstruck, Stiles got in the other side and buckled up.

“Where are we?” Stiles asked as Derek was pulling out of the drive. This was all too much, too weird. At least knowing what part of the country he was in would give him some bearings.

“What?”

“What town is this?”

“Stiles… we’re in Beacon Hills.”

“Really?” Stiles looked out the window, but he didn’t recognize anything. “That’s wild.” But this was Stiles’ life, and he knew how this shit went. He’d had a moment of ‘what the fuck’, but he could roll. One had to hit the ground running when they ran with werewolves. “So what’s the situation?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You know… what is it this time? What supernatural beastie were we tangling with? Kanima, resurrected uncle, alphas, Japanese demons… or maybe something new.” Because whatever it was, it laid the whammy on Stiles big time. He was getting really tired of being the one that ended up on the wrong side of fine.

The sooner they rallied the troops, probably the better. “We should call Scott,” Stiles announced.

“Scott?”

“Yeah. Or I guess we could swing by and pick him up. I’m not bleeding that bad that we can’t make a pit-stop.”

“Scott lives in San Francisco… we are not going to get him.”

“He… _what_? No, he doesn’t. He’s never even been to San Francisco.”

A very heavy silence filled the car. “Stiles… what day is it?”

“Oh my god, are you checking me for a concussion?”

“Humor me.”

Stiles looked uncertainly at Derek. He was being so… _nice_. He hadn’t growled or manhandled Stiles once, come to think of it. Now Stiles was starting to freak out, because if Derek Hale was being nice, then something was definitely wrong.

“Um… Wednesday, it’s…” he looked at the dashboard clock. “No, Thursday. Shit! My chem final!” He’d been up into the early hours of the morning studying for that damn chemistry final, and now he wasn’t even going to get to take it on time, because genius Stilinski had to go and need stitches put in his face.

Derek didn’t say anything else on the drive to the hospital, but his silence was damning. It gave Stiles a very bad feeling.

*******************

Stiles was feeling pretty grumpy by the time they walked into the emergency room. He looked up, hoping Mrs. McCall might be on duty, but it seemed his luck was continuing its streak of suck. He didn’t recognize the admitting nurse at the desk. And she probably wasn’t on the fast-track to being his best friend due to the dirty look Stiles gave the clipboard and paperwork she pushed his way.

Derek touched his arm. “Go sit down, I’ll fill this out.”

Stiles didn’t even care how – Derek could make it all up for all he cared – he just went with it and found a seat in the waiting area.

In a few minutes, Derek joined him.

Stiles slumped down in his seat, surly and sore. Between the house and the ER, he had a headache. The cut on his forehead was just the icing on the shitty-ass cake, throbbing in time with his pulse. He felt discombobulated and sticky with drying blood. At this point, he didn’t even want to figure out what was going on. He just wanted to go back to sleep and hope it worked like rebooting a computer. He’d wake up and be in his own bed, surrounded by dirty laundry and chemistry notes.

“Headache?” Derek asked.

Stiles nodded.

Derek rubbed Stiles’ back between his shoulder blades and Stiles jerked in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“I’m... helping?”

“I know, and it’s freaking me out.”

Derek gave him that really worried look again.

“Mr. Hale?”

Derek stood and turned to Stiles. “Come on.”

*********************

While the nurse put three stitches in the cut just above his right eyebrow, Derek stood back watching him with that face of worry. He texted on his phone a little, but mostly he hung back and watched. Stiles glanced in his direction a couple of times, not really sure what to do with this Derek that was hovering and protective and, oh yeah, _woke up naked in bed with him that morning_.

That worry wasn’t doing the guy any favors, either. He looked older. Stiles hadn’t really noticed before. Given the circumstances, he thought he could be forgiven for not being the most aware. But they gave him some painkillers, and it freed his brain up enough to see concern added years to Derek’s face.

“Stiles… are you listening?” the nurse asked.

“Um… not really.”

Stiles hoped her middle name was Patience with how well she tolerated that. “I asked how this happened.”

“Uhhh…”

“Yeah, this I have to hear,” a familiar voice sounded as Sheriff Stilinski walked in the room.

“Dad!” Stiles said with pure relief.

The sheriff, in uniform, came into the room alongside Derek. Hell, everyone looked like crap today. Stiles hated to think he was the reason. 

The sheriff came into the exam room, stopped beside Derek, and… put a hand on his shoulder? Stiles openly boggled at that. Since when were Derek and John Stilinski BFFs? “Derek… thanks for the text.”

Derek gave a distracted nod.

“Go on, son… I’d like to hear your version of the story.”

Stiles chewed on his lip. Oh, he did _not_ want to be telling his dad this one. The sheriff would have a fit at the part where Stiles woke up sans clothes with Derek, and Stiles wouldn’t even have a fucking explanation for it. His day just went from bad to worse. 

“Um… well, I woke up and… and Derek was in the bed, and I… got startled? Anyway, I kind of fell and hit my head on the nightstand.”

The nurse was eyeing him shrewdly.

His dad frowned. “Why would that startle you?”

“Are you kidding?” Stiles squeaked.

Derek looked personally affronted.

The nurse was not pleased. “Finding this man in your bed startled you?”

There was ‘bad touch’ weight to her words, and it hit Stiles the same time it did John.

“She’s assessing you for domestic violence, son,” John said, voice holding back laughter. Derek actually fucking _paled_.

“What? No! No, Derek didn’t… he didn’t even touch me. I just spazzed out and flew out of bed into the furniture on my own. Ask anyone who knows me; I’m pretty flaily.” Not that Derek was opposed to slamming Stiles into walls and being fairly abusive as a general rule, but nothing outside the scope of being a surly werewolf with socialization issues and certainly not anything worthy of siccing the law on him. Stiles looked the nurse dead in the eye. “To answer your question, _no_. There’s no ‘domestic violence’ going on here.” Boy, was she way off base on _that_ one. If Stiles wasn’t weirded out and bleeding, he would laugh.

The nurse looked toward the sheriff, and John’s lack of concern on the matter seemed to sway her more than Stiles did. She relented with a nod. “Okay, Stiles,” she said, cutting the excess off the last stitch, “I think that should just about do it. I’ll just put on a bandage and you should be good to go.”

“Actually,” Derek spoke up, “first, could you make sure he doesn’t have any brain damage?”

John snorted.

“Gee, thanks. Real nice, dude,” Stiles said.

But Derek’s face was all kinds of not joking. “I mean it.”

“Derek?” John came alert.

Derek looked down with Concern, capital C, at Stiles. “He’s been weird ever since he woke up. Weirder than usual for Stiles. He didn’t know what town we lived in, and he wanted to pick up Scott on the way.”

Stiles was gaping at Derek, mouthing at him ‘what are you doing?’ when he caught his eye. If they were on some kind of mission, tracking down a critter or whatever, way to totally _not_ keep it on the down-low.

“Stiles?” Now his dad was giving him that ‘Stiles, you are really starting to worry me’ look.

Well, all right, if they wanted to play it that way…

“Look, I… fine, I’m confused. I mean, I woke up in a strange house _naked in bed_ with Derek Hale. Why is that not bothering _anyone else_ but me here? I really think we should all be flipping our shit just a little bit about that. Especially my dad! I mean, what the hell, Dad? Can you give me one good reason why I _would_ wake up next to him?”

“… because he’s your husband?”

What?!

“ _What_?!” Stiles looked quickly at Derek… 

Who actually looked kind of fucking gutted. What in the god damn hell??

“Stiles, what’s the date?”

“This again?”

Derek pinned him with a look. “What _year_?”

“2014.” He looked at his dad to Derek and back again. Their faces said it all. “It’s not 2014, is it?”

Derek shook his head.

“Shit, what year is it?”

“Son… it’s 2021.”

“It’s… no, it can’t be…” But little things he’d been dismissing suddenly became glaringly obvious. Derek didn’t just look older because he was tired. He _was_ older. The same with his father. The years on their faces he’d attributed to the stress of dealing with him were actually just _years_. Seven of them. And he hadn’t woken up in his bedroom in his father’s house, because why would he? If he was in his mid-twenties, he wouldn’t be living at home anymore.

He looked down at his hands, looking for signs they were older than he remembered, but all he really saw was the ring on his left hand. The ring that he had somehow not noticed, between waking up in the twilight zone and the gushing head wound and all.

“Oh my god…” Stiles jerked his eyes up to Derek. “How the hell did I end up marrying _you_?”

He meant it in a ‘we never had anything going on beyond grudging tolerance, how could we end up getting along enough to marry each other’ way, but the flash of hurt on Derek’s face made it pretty clear Stiles hadn’t really worded it well. 

Shit, now he’d upset _his husband_.

“I didn’t see any indications of a concussion when I examined him,” the nurse was saying, “but we could schedule an MRI –”

“ _NO_!” Stiles jumped off the table and hurried toward Derek and his dad. On reflex, Derek’s hands came up to Stiles’ arms, flexing in readiness to push Stiles behind him, protect him. Which actually wasn’t all _that_ out of character from the Derek Stiles knew. Huh.

“Son, maybe…”

“No, I’m _not_ getting in that machine again.” At his father’s hesitant look, Stiles stage-whispered, “It’s _2014_ to me, Dad… think about what was going on back in 2014.” He looked intently at his father, willing him to _get it_.

And suddenly Sheriff Stilinski did. His face lost most of its color and he flicked a knowing glance past Stiles’ shoulder to Derek. Stiles didn’t look, but Derek’s hands tightened on Stiles’ arms.

“Couldn’t we take him home and just watch him for a while?” the sheriff hedged.

“Mr. Stilinski, Mr. Hale is missing seven years of his memory. That’s a serious cerebral event.”

Stiles was going to have a heart attack. Holy fuck, he was a _Hale_.

“Trust me, we understand that. We’d just prefer to give him some time to see if his memory will come back on its own. We’ll keep a close eye on him, and if it gets worse we’ll bring him in immediately.”

The nurse was now sporting her sour lemon/difficult patient face. “I really don’t advise foregoing further testing, but we can’t force Stiles to undergo anything he doesn’t want to. You’re free to go, but I strongly recommend you reconsider.”

“Thanks, we’ll do that,” Stiles said hastily. Then he turned to Derek and said in a barely-there whisper, “Get me out of here.” He knew he sounded panicked and pleading but he didn’t care. He heard ‘MRI’ and he remembered coming out of it having done terrible things he couldn’t control, possessed by a chaos demon that wanted people to suffer and die and used Stiles to do it.

Derek nodded. “Sheriff? Would you object to me taking the day off?”

“Of course not.”

Derek tugged Stiles closer, like he might have pulled him into his side if Stiles hadn’t tensed and balked. Derek backed off, looking kind of wounded, and sighed. “Come on, Stiles… let’s go home.”

It wasn’t home. Not really. Not Stiles’ home. At least not that he remembered. But it was refuge from the hospital, where they wanted to stick him back in that MRI. He might never be able to go into one of those machines again, not after the nogitsune. There was probably a lot of fairly innocuous stuff he would never be able to do again thanks to that.

Stiles was one fucked up dude, but apparently that hadn’t been enough to stop someone from marrying him.

Granted it was Derek Hale…

“Hey!” Stiles said suddenly when a thought occurred to him as they were walking through the hospital parking lot.

“What?” Derek asked.

“It’s 2021, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You know what that means?”

Derek gave him a wary look.

“Means I _don’t_ have a chemistry test today.”

Despite the epic levels of what the shit going on, that got a snort out of Derek.


	2. Chapter 2

When they got back into the car and left the hospital behind, Derek was doing that silent brooding thing. There seemed to be more worry than anger in his broody silence than Stiles was used to, but typically taciturn nonetheless.

Stiles, however, was not.

“So… do you think it was a spell?”

Derek gave him a brief ‘what the hell are you on about?’ look.

“You know, like maybe I pissed off a witch, she threw some eyes of newt in a bubbling cauldron, and now I’m stuck in some bizarre alternate reality?”

“You really think that’s the most likely explanation?” 

“Uh… well, yeah. What else could it be?”

Derek gave him a very pained look.

“What? What did I say?” Stiles needled.

“Isn’t it more probable that there is just something wrong with your memory?”

Stiles gaped. “Uh… no. No, it’s not. I mean, that would mean this Stiles is me Stiles, and me Stiles wouldn’t…” Stiles clamped his mouth shut, because he realized one second before it flew out of his mouth how hurtful his next words would be.

But even if Stiles bit his tongue, Derek knew where he was going. “The real you wouldn’t marry me.”

Stiles opened and closed his mouth a few times, then huffed out a breath. “Well, I mean, come on. Of all the possible pairings of our social group, you and I were probably _the_ least likely couple. Like, me and Megan Fox had a better chance of tying the knot.”

“You would never have a shot with Megan Fox.”

“Thanks. Nice. But apparently I would with _you_?”

Derek took his left hand off the steering wheel to hold it up for Stiles to see… wedding ring and all.

Stiles squinted and shook his head. “I can’t… my head hurts. You shouldn’t pose these kind of existential questions to a guy with a head injury. It’s in the Geneva Conventions.”

Derek didn’t say anything, and Stiles scrunched down in the passenger seat to try and get a grip on things. He was pretty sure going to sleep wasn’t going to ctrl+alt+del this weird reality, so he had better nut up and start using his brain.

He tried to see this from Derek’s point of view. The dude went to bed one night with his husband, then the next thing he knew his spouse was freaking out saying he didn’t remember the last seven years of their life together. Worse, that he couldn’t comprehend a timeline where he would ever marry Derek Hale.

Even Stiles could admit that had to be an uppercut to the nut sack. And therefore kind of shitty of him. This Derek, whether real Derek or holodeck Derek, seemed actually pretty decent. Kind, even. He didn’t deserve to have Stiles constantly tearing down his marriage. If this _was_ some weird reality Stiles had been transported into, if _he_ was the piece out of place, then it was Derek in the right and Stiles who had it all wrong.

Besides, until he figured out what the hell was going on and how to put things right, he might want to be smart about _not_ alienating the people who cared about him and wanted to help him.

“Look, Derek… I’m sorry. I know this has to suck for you, too. And whether I’m your Stiles or Evil Goatee Spock Stiles, I just… you know, thanks. For taking care of me.”

Derek’s right hand left the steering wheel and he reached over blindly toward Stiles. Maybe to take Stiles’ hand or something, but he wasn’t sure because Stiles pressed himself into the passenger side door and Derek froze before pulling his hand back.

“We’ll figure this out, Stiles. I promise.”

“I know. I’m just… it’s a lot to take in. Like you and me. _That_ elephant in the room for starters. When? How? Who? And I took your name?”

Derek smirked. “We talked about it before we got married. You were pretty insistent.”

“I was?”

Derek nodded. “Said it was the chance of a lifetime and when you sent in to have your last name legally changed, you changed your first name, too. And really, Stiles Hale _is_ better than your last legal name.”

“You…” Stiles croaked, “You know my first name?”

“Previous first name, yes. And I could spell it in a pinch, but I still can’t pronounce it.”

“Well, don’t try!” Stiles went to facepalm and yelped when he forgot the fact part of his face was held together with stitches. “Oh! Ow! Oh my god, I can’t believe I told you my first name.”

Derek chuckled. “Don’t worry, babe, I never told anyone. And it’s not like it’s going to come up anymore since you had it changed.”

Stiles peeled open one eye to peer at Derek incredulously. “Babe?! Shit, we’re one of those couples?”

Derek blinked, clearly not paying attention to the pet name slip, then he shrugged one shoulder stiffly.

“Oh, fuck me…” Stiles grumbled, then he went ramrod straight and darted a look at Derek. “I mean, no! Don’t! I meant…”

“Relax, Stiles, I know what you meant.” He frowned. “We probably need to sit down and talk.”

“At, uh… at home?”

The tone of Stiles’ voice must have been telling, because Derek said, “Maybe someplace more neutral. How does breakfast sound?”

“Breakfast. Yes. Breakfast sounds good. Breakfast with a side-order of filling me in.” The double entendre hit Stiles like a slap. “With answers! I meant filling me in with _answers_.” He wilted in his seat. “Oooh my _god_ , how am I married to you? No, seriously. It has to be so painfully, painfully awkward for both of us. Just an endless parade of Stiles sticking his foot in his mouth.”

“If you could remember last night, you wouldn’t be talking about a _foot_ being in your mouth.”

If there was a sound for an aneurysm, Stiles made it. “ _Derek_!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Derek said with a smile on his lips, “that was out of line.” He was clearly torn between laughing and doing damage control. 

Stiles squirmed, because Derek said ‘I’m sorry’, but he didn’t say ‘I’m kidding’. Stiles had a sneaking suspicion that was because he wasn’t. Holy fucking shit, other Stiles was a sex _god_. Because Stiles didn’t care what your preference was, bedding Derek Hale was a feat. People should build shrines in his name. To our glorious Stiles, who hath laid the Derek of Hale.

“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, just…” all traces of humor fled as Derek sighed, “you don’t remember the last seven years, but _I_ do. It’s going to be hard not to treat you like I normally do.”

Stiles cleared his throat. “I get that. I do. I just… this is really fucking weird from where I’m sitting.”

“From where I’m sitting, too. Let’s just take it one step at a time.”

“Breakfast.”

“Right.”

“And a friendly little q and a.”

*************

It was a relief that Stiles actually recognized the diner Derek stopped at – he and his dad had eaten there many times – even if he didn’t recognize any of the wait staff when they walked inside.

The wait staff, however, recognized them.

“Well, if it isn’t the Hales,” a woman in her mid-fifties near the door greeted them cheerfully when they entered. Then her eyes widened when she saw Stiles. “Goodness, Stiles, what happened to you?”

“Uhh… would you believe I got this beaut in my secret life as a crime-fighter?” He could be Batman, damnit.

“Hmmm…” the woman came closer, giving him a critical once-over. “You don’t seem to be very good at it. Best leave the crime-fighting to your husband.”

“Hey! You don’t even know what the other guy looks like!” Stiles objected… just on principle, you know? 

Wait a second…

Stiles looked quickly over at Derek, who smiled at the woman giving Stiles a hard time. “Stiles cracked his head on the nightstand.”

“Oh, lord… you didn’t throw him into it in a randy round of hanky panky, did you, Derek?”

Stiles wheezed like a balloon leaking air, but Derek just laughed. “No, definitely not. Personally, I think it was Stiles’ plan to get me to take a day off work and spend some time with him.”

As if! Stiles hoped his mighty scowl of ‘how dare you’ got across his level of effrontery at such a claim.

But since the lady was just chuckling and shaking her head, it probably didn’t. “You boys… well, always glad to see you two. Come on in and we’ll get you seated.”

They were shown to a booth, and Stiles waited until the entirely-too-familiar-with-their-sex-lives waitress left before turning to Derek and asking. “Crime-fighting?”

Derek just lifted his eyebrows. “Yeah… I work with your dad.”

“You do.” He said it dubiously, but when Derek didn’t so much as blink Stiles went, “Really?”

Derek nodded. “You didn’t think it was odd that I asked him for the day off back at the hospital?”

“Honestly, on the list of things I was having trouble wrapping my head around, that detail was low on the list. So you’re a cop?”

“Deputy.”

Stiles stared, slack-jaw, at Derek. He was trying to imagine him in uniform. That was hotter than it had right to be. Not in a ‘perving on Derek’ way, just in a totally subjective ‘Derek is attractive and a uniform would only enhance the hotness factor’ way. Stiles might not have ‘marry Derek Hale’ on his bucket list, but he wasn’t fucking _blind_.

“You’re picturing me in uniform, aren’t you?” Derek asked knowingly.

Stiles flushed. “What? No! Just… shut up!” He ducked his head when the waitress brought them their drinks, then grunted a tad petulantly after she left, “I just can’t picture you in law enforcement.”

Derek shrugged. “I didn’t expect to end up there, either, but I actually like it. And it helps Dad having someone on the force with… special knowledge and skills.”

Ignoring for the moment that Derek apparently called John Stilinski ‘Dad’ now. “Oh yeah… probably would be helpful. I imagine you get called in on all kinds of crazy ‘consultations’.”

Derek nodded agreement.

“So, like… do you come home after work and tell me all about the cases you work on?”

Expression totally deadpan, Derek answered, “That would be a breach of protocol. I couldn’t divulge details of an ongoing case… legally.”

Stiles guffawed. Oh yeah, Derek totally gave him all the dirt on the nefarious deeds that went on in Beacon Hills. Awesome.

One side of Derek’s mouth twitched.

The waitress came back to take their orders, and by the time she left an awkward silence had fallen over the table.

Stiles rubbed a hand through his hair (which was shorter than he remembered it being before he was whisked to the Land of Oz), then he decided to jump right in.

“Okay, so…” But god, where to start? He looked across the table at Derek, who was watching him closely. And other people might not notice how keyed up and tense he was, but Stiles did. He might not be married to the guy, but he had known him for years.

So Stiles decided to start with the easy stuff.

“Scott lives in San Francisco?”

Derek blinked, clearly surprised by the question, then he visibly relaxed. “Yeah. He and Kira moved out there right after graduating high school. Technically, Kira and her parents moved first, but Scott followed not three months later after a really lame attempt at long-distance dating.” Derek fiddled with the salt and pepper shakers. “We all went out there about six years ago for their wedding.”

“Scott and Kira got married?”

“Yep.”

“Wow.”

“They have a four-and-a-half-year-old daughter.”

“No way!”

Derek smirked. “Way. Her name’s Rene.”

That took Stiles a moment. First, to imagine his best friend moving away and Stiles not tagging along. He just figured he and Scott would always live near each other, eternally in some form of the friendship they’d had through school. Then to picture goofy, moon-eyed Scott as a father.

“What about Lydia?”

“Works at the District Attorney’s office in New York.”

Stiles whistled. 

“She went to law school in New York, interned at the court house, and got a full-time position faster than I imagine just about anyone ever has.”

“Yeah, well, from Lydia, that’s not really shocking. She totally rocks that Will Hunting thing. I was going to guess something along those lines… or that she’d gone the mad scientist route and had her own rocket with a death ray holding the president hostage from outer space or something.”

Derek snorted.

“What about Malia?”

Derek got a pinched look on his face and just shook his head. Shook his head in a very ‘we don’t speak of that’ sort of way. Okay, so Stiles would have to come back to that one, because the waitress was approaching and Derek looked like it wasn’t good news on the Malia Tate front. Stiles was getting the gist she wasn’t around, though. Stiles felt bad for that – the poor girl never seemed to catch a break. 

They paused when their food arrived, and Stiles packed face an entire piece of bacon before he asked around a mouthful, “What about Isaac?”

Derek hesitated. “He… all we know is he’s somewhere in Europe. He sent a postcard once, but that was…” Derek tapped his fork distractedly against the side of his plate. “Stiles… what do _you_ remember? You said at the hospital… I can fill you in on what happened, but I don’t know where I need to start for you.”

“Oh… right.” Stiles swallowed thickly. The bacon stuck in his throat and he grimaced. Served him right for not chewing properly. “When I went to bed last night, it was the end of my junior year. In fact, I was cramming for a chemistry final I had the next day – and sucking on all fronts at it. I downed four cups of coffee and this Japanese tea Kira gave me that was supposedly good for concentration but tasted like _ass_ … huh, now I’m wondering if I actually managed to pass that thing.”

“Well, I don’t know about passing that particular test, but I can tell you that you never had to retake chemistry.”

“Score for Stilinski,” Stiles celebrated after-the-fact with a forkful of eggs. Then he sobered. “The… we’d just dealt with the…” he twirled a finger around his temple, “with the nogitsune.” Stiles used chewed thoroughly as an excuse to pause, trying to order his thoughts. This was all still fresh for him. Still serrated and dangerous. “Honestly, where I came from everything was still a mess. Allison just… we weren’t over it yet. Scott and Isaac were both super-bitchy. It’s like they were both looking to pick a fight over everything. It actually doesn’t surprise me that Isaac took off. He was kind of halfway out the door, figuratively, the last time I talked to him.”

Derek thought about where Stiles was coming from, thinking back to the last timeline they shared.

Stiles perked up. “Did I go to college?”

“You did one semester at the community college before you ‘concluded your talents would be more useful elsewhere’.”

“Yeah, that sounds like something I’d say. Bet my dad was disappointed I didn’t go, though.”

“He’s not disappointed in you,” Derek said gently. 

The ‘gently’ was still giving Stiles the willies, so he asked abruptly, “So do I have a job?”

“You did. You worked for a non-profit for a few years helping families of cancer patients, but you quit a couple of months ago.”

“To do what?” Stiles waited for Derek to tell him what job replaced that one, but he never did. Stiles frowned. “So I don’t work now? I… oh hell no. You mean I’m _kept_? I’m a _househusband_?”

Derek tried to stifle his smile with his hand, but Stiles saw it.

“Oh god, how humiliating,” Stiles slumped down in the booth. “I’m the _wife_.”

“You have far too much penis to be a wife.”

Stiles flailed, banging his knees on the underside of the table and sending the cutlery clattering against their plates. “Quit _saying_ that crap!” Stiles squeaked. “I’m declaring a no-fly zone on all references to my genitals, got it! Until further notice, there will be no discussion of the Stilinski nether-regions. Stiles south-of-the-border is forbidden lands.”

Derek held up a hand in surrender.

“For the love of god,” Stiles grumbled, “who would have thought you were so obsessed with _dicks_?”

“In my defense, I’m not the only one at this table who married a man.”

Right.

Stiles turned back to his food, just for a distraction from all the Derekness happening across from him. He couldn’t last long, however, before glancing back in his direction.

Derek was pushing his food around his plate, clearly troubled. He looked pointedly at Stiles. “I don’t want to hear you talk about yourself like that. So you don’t have a job, but that doesn’t mean you don’t do anything.” Derek glanced around the diner. “Being… what I am… doesn’t automatically make law enforcement any easier. If anything, it makes things harder. I used to protect my secret by keeping my head down and avoiding… revealing situations. But I can’t do that in my line of work. I can’t avoid being noticed or people paying attention. I have to be so careful all the time, and it’s hard. Plus the things I see on the job… I thought I’d seen everything people – and not-people – could do to each other, but the first year on the force proved me wrong. I have to deal with some _ugly_ shit sometimes, but I never feel overwhelmed. At least, not for long. Because at the end of every shift I come home to you, and you just make it all _easier_. Better. I see the bad in people – I always did – but you always see the good. I need that perspective. I need your… heart. You keep me level. You tame me. And that’s important.”

Stiles sat speechless, gaping at Derek. He would bank on riding a purple unicorn to school before he heard that kind of speech come out of Derek’s mouth. And honestly, he didn’t know what to do with it. He had this idea of Derek Hale. Brusque, growly, man of few words, creeper of high school and teenagers’ bedrooms. That was a Derek Stiles would not dream of marrying in a million years.

But _this_ Derek. Well, shit… he was husband-material. Stiles didn’t doubt he still had enough rough-edges to cut through cee purlin, but this Derek was someone Stiles wouldn’t necessarily, unequivocally, automatically rule out as a life-partner.

_Fuuuuuuck_.

“How you boys doing?” the waitress asked as she walked past.

Derek managed to plaster on a pleasant smile. “It’s great. Thanks, Nancy.”

Stiles tucked back into his breakfast, keeping his eyes down so he could have some time alone with his thoughts.

If possible, things were even more confusing now than they were when he first woke up.

*************

Stiles was feeling very out-of-sorts when they finally got back to the house. Their house, he supposed, but it didn’t feel like home to him. It _wasn’t_ home to him. He stopped just inside the front door and eyed the place like it might grow teeth and bite him.

Derek slipped around past him. “Do you need anything?”

They’d lapsed into a silence at the diner that lasted the entire ride home. It was still there now.

“No, I just… maybe I’ll just look around?” He didn’t expect anything to jog his memory, because this wasn’t his reality, but going through the motions like it could might make Derek feel better. Because Derek was convinced this was a memory issue and not some inter-dimensional rabbit hole. Stiles didn’t have the heart to press the issue, because Stiles was just hoping to get back to that chemistry final he may or may not pass while Derek was hoping for his husband back.

Derek pocketed his keys. “Sure… I’ve got some work I can do from here. If you have any questions, just ask.”

Of course he had questions, he was nothing _but_ questions, but he was still feeling overloaded with information from breakfast. And he hadn’t even asked everything on his mind. Just everything he could handle at once.

Derek disappeared into the innards of the house, and Stiles took a tentative step into the living room.

It looked cozy. A couch and recliner faced a television mounted on the opposite wall. A coffee table with a criminal law book and outdoor magazines on it had scuff marks from where putting one’s feet on the table was clearly not against house rules. There was a print on the wall of two wolves – one black and one white – in the woods in winter.

Stiles wandered over to a bookcase of DVDs and read the titles. He recognized a lot of his favorites, and others that were popular that he never really cared for (those must have been Derek’s favorites). A few educational DVDs from the American Cancer Society. Some documentaries on the criminal justice system. And then some movies that he had never heard of before in his life – presumably films made within the last seven years.

The top cinematic picks of the last seven years were tempting, but Stiles moved on to the second bookshelf, which held actual books.

There were textbooks with yellowed ‘used’ stickers on the spine that screamed of college. And Stiles knew he hadn’t gone, so they must be Derek’s. He saw some of his books, ones that had been in his bedroom growing up, among the titles. In a world full of so much unfamiliar, the sight of them was reassuring. At least his Chronicles of Narnia that his mom used to read to him at bedtime was a constant. There were some books in different languages that piqued his interest and made him add another question for Derek to his mental list.

One tattered and worn spine made Stiles reach out and pull the book from the shelf for a closer look. He traced his thumb over the letters of the title ‘ShineGold’ and realized that he had no idea from looking at it whose book it was. It looked scifi, which he’d been known to read on occasion. But he had no clue what kind of literature Derek liked to read for the fun of it. He didn’t know that kind of personal information about Derek. This novel was _someone’s_ go-to – this book had plainly been read more than once – but Stiles had no idea whose guilty pleasure it was.

And the not knowing was troubling on a very base level.

He went to put the book back when his eyes caught on the spine of what was clearly a photo album on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

Stiles grabbed it up like it might vanish on him. He took both, ShineGold and the photo album, to the coffee table and set them down, album on top. But he didn’t open it. He just started making a pile.

He went into the kitchen next. He stared at the countertops and the island and the table and chairs with a detached numbness. He couldn’t really imagine any of this being _his_. He still felt like a kid. He couldn’t fathom being a homeowner, much less having his own table and chairs. Like he could take one of those chairs and smash it to pieces and he wouldn’t get in trouble for it because that was _his fucking chair_. System error.

He went to the fridge to peruse the papers stuck to it with magnets. A letter from the Beacon Hills Cancer Group addressed to Stiles Hale thanking him for his help with some kind of fundraiser. A receipt for tires for the Honda. A notice about an upcoming training seminar on domestic violence protocol for Derek in November. A sheet of paper torn in half with the scribbled name ‘Annabelle’ and columns of phone numbers and dates that meant nothing to Stiles. A piece of pink construction paper, on it written in purple marker ‘I LUV U UNKL DERK + UNKL STILZ’ and a really bad drawing of a dog. Or a racecar. Maybe a racecar-dog. That would be awesome.

Off the kitchen was a door to the garage, which had been converted to an at-home gym. That was Derek’s… Stiles didn’t even have to ask to know that one. There was a weight bench and free weights and some other exercise paraphernalia he couldn’t identify. But Derek clearly wasn’t a controlling meathead about his work-out space, because along the edges was a lawnmower and a box labeled ‘X-MAS’ and then a metal rack of shelves with extension cords, motor oil, and tools. He also saw some lacrosse gear in the corner – clearly his, though the layer of dust suggested Derek used his weights far more than Stiles used his stick and face mask.

Stiles went back inside (skipping the laundry room entirely, because even in an alternate dimension that was boring) and poked his head in the hall bathroom, which was clearly the guest/general purpose bathroom, because it had that ‘we don’t use this one much’ feel to it.

Next Stiles found himself in the bedroom, looking closely at the room he’d only seen through a veil of confusion and blood that morning.

The bed in the center was unmade and odd articles of clothing were strewn across the floor. There were two nightstands, one on each side of the bed. On the right, there was a framed picture of Stiles’ mom. There was also a book on the occult (that figured) and an empty glass.

The nightstand on the left was home to the alarm clock, a lamp, and file folders Stiles recognized from the Beacon Hills Police Department. And a half-empty container of lube.

“Okay!” Stiles yelped and turned his back to look _somewhere else_.

There was a dresser on Derek’s side, a television stand on the wall opposite the bed with a television, DVD player, and gaming console taking up the three levels of storage space. He resisted the temptation to thumb through the games leaning against the gaming system in favor of continuing his exploration of the bedroom, but he couldn’t help noticing that both controllers were hooked up. He couldn’t shake the mental image of him and Derek side-by-side at the foot of the bed playing Call of Duty.

On the wall next to the door, closest to Stiles’ side of the bed (and how nuts was it that Stiles already knew ‘his side’), there was a painting of a pack of wolves running in the forest, their features hidden and outlines silvered by moonlight, and written in the black of the shadows: “I went looking for myself in places dark and lonely, and the night gave me a home among the wolves”.

Stiles wasn’t sure who that was meant to speak to, him or Derek. Who had picked that out? Who had brought it home and proclaimed without speaking that ‘this is me, I’m the one who found his home among wolves’. Because it could be either one of them.

Again, that place where the line between Stiles and Derek got hazy was borderline terrifying. He turned away rather than dwell. There was still some more house to see.

He meandered his way into the master bath attached to the bedroom and did a double-take at the hodge-podge of stuff on the counter. For some reason he was expecting clear separation between his stuff and Derek’s. There wasn’t. There was one cup with two toothbrushes in it. An electric razor and a regular razor stacked together by the mirror. One tube of toothpaste. A single bottle of mouthwash. Two different brands of deodorant.

Evidence of two lives thoroughly, hopelessly enmeshed. There was no way to pick apart Stiles from Derek, Derek from Stiles.

Stiles walked out of the master bath and bed without pausing.

The next room Stiles stuck his head in was an office, though it looked half-full. The desk and half-bookcase were both pushed against the far wall, leaving the rest of the room empty. There were boxes stacked near the door, like they were still setting this room up, which made Stiles wonder how long they’d lived here. The rest of the house suggested years, but this room made him question that if they were just now getting around to unpacking the office.

In the chair in front of the computer, Derek was reading from a case report, a pen held lightly between his teeth. When Stiles poked his head in, he looked up and took the pen out of his mouth. “Hey.”

“Uh… hi.”

Derek watched him expectantly. Stiles fidgeted in the doorway. “Lot of wolf décor in here.”

“Is this about me shooting down that poster of Cthulhu you wanted in the hall?”

Stiles barked out a laugh. God, that _did_ sound like him. “What are you working on?” he asked, taking a step into the room and nodding at the file Derek held.

Derek glanced down at the case file. “Paperwork on a guy we arrested for petty larceny.”

“Sounds thrilling,” Stiles said drolly.

“Well, it can’t all be kanimas and rogue alphas. Frankly, stuff like this is nice for a change.” He put the file down and turned his chair to face Stiles. “How are you feeling?”

“Still really, really confused.”

Derek nodded slowly. “Anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t even know, man.” Stiles looked down at his feet. What he really wanted to ask for would hurt Derek’s feelings. He knew it would. And Stiles didn’t want to hurt him. But this also wasn’t his life. He couldn’t just pick it up like it was, be the househusband and be with Derek when the last time he remembered talking to Derek, they were tentative allies at best.

“Stiles? Talk to me.”

Stiles heaved a sigh. “Okay, I don’t want you to take this personally, but… what I really want right now is to go home.”

Derek stared at him uncomprehending a moment, then realization sank in. “You want me to take you to your dad’s?”

Stiles winced. “Yes.”

Derek looked away, visibly hurt.

“It’s not you, okay? You’re being really nice about all this… but I’m just… I’m just kind of overwhelmed. I need some space to think.”

From the look on his face, Stiles may as well have taken off his wedding ring and thrown it in Derek’s face. But Stiles didn’t. He was wearing the ring. He’d _keep_ wearing the ring. But he needed to retreat and regroup. Derek had to see that, right? It didn’t mean ‘get out of my life’. It meant ‘give me some time to figure out my life’.

“I’ll drive you over,” Derek said lowly.

Stiles sagged in relief. “Thank you.”

Derek just nodded.

Stiles didn’t think anything he might say could make it less hard on Derek, so he didn’t try.

On the way out the door, as they passed through the living room, Stiles went to his little stack on the coffee table. “Mind if I take these?” he asked.

“Take anything you want. It’s yours, too.”

“Don’t…” Stiles began, intent on saying ‘don’t talk like this is a divorce’, but he held his tongue and just clutched the book and album to his chest. This wasn’t even his marriage, but he felt like utter shit at that particular moment for endangering it. He felt like he was ripping Derek’s life to pieces.

He wasn’t, he didn’t _want_ to, but he also couldn’t climb into bed with Derek tonight and sleep beside him like there was nothing wrong. He didn’t have that relationship with him. He didn’t share their history. He wasn’t anyone’s husband. He was just freaked-out Stiles Stilinski performing triage on the clusterfuck that was his life.

Stiles just hoped Derek could understand that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I had to do some fourth-wall breaking in this chapter when it came to the book that I chose to feature in this fic – and let me tell you, it was _weird_! But I didn’t want to choose a well-known classic that everyone’s read, and I didn’t want to stop writing in order to research a good book to use, and nobody knows ShineGold like I do (plus I know the author doesn’t care if I use it). Still… so weird!


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey, kiddo.”

“Hi, Dad.”

For an awkward moment, Sheriff Stilinski stood in the door of his son’s old room, looking in at Stiles on the guest bed. Stiles looked down at his hands, trying not to notice how stripped and gutted the room felt. He’d come here hoping for a refuge, the familiar, but his room wasn’t his room anymore. He felt like a _guest_.

Turned out he had nowhere to go.

“Derek called me, said you asked him to bring you here,” John said as he took a couple of steps into the room.

Stiles was sitting on the edge of the bed, hating the floral print bedspread and the ugly fucking pillows and missing the corkboard where he’d pinned notes and photos and connected them all with color-coded yarn.

Now there was a framed print of a sailboat on the wall. What the fuck? His dad didn’t even know how to sail.

“Stiles?”

“Yeah, no, I just… it was weird being in that house.” Stiles looked up at his father. “Are you okay with me staying here?”

“You don’t even have to ask.” John pursed his lips. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to go in for testing?”

“That is _not_ happening,” Stiles balked.

“You could have a brain tumor.”

“Well, I wasn’t ready to jump to that worst-case scenario yet, but thanks for blazing a trail, Dad.”

John moved to the bed and sat down beside his son. “I’m worried about you. So is Derek.”

“I _know_ , and I get it, but I _can’t_. Last time I went into that thing, I came out and I _hurt_ people. Allison _died_. I have nightmares about that sound, that god-awful _clanking_ , like the bastard was pounding to get in. And _he did_. You put me in that machine again, and I’m going to have a panic attack. There’s no maybe about that, I _will_.”

“Okay, okay… calm down, Stiles… take it easy.”

Stiles didn’t realize his hands were clenched into fists or that he was gulping for breath until his dad’s hand fell on his shoulder and he buckled. His breath stuttered and he forced his fingers open, tucking them underneath his thighs to hide the fact they were shaking.

“We’ll hold off on testing,” John was saying, rubbing Stiles’ back with his hand, “but if this doesn’t get better – or if it gets worse – you’re going in for tests. I don’t care if they have to sedate you.”

That was fair. He couldn’t ask his dad to just stand by and not act if things got worse. Besides, they _would_ have to sedate him, and presumably he couldn’t freak out in the MRI machine if he wasn’t conscious for it. He nodded jerkily.

“Want to talk about Derek?” John asked as an opening.

Stiles groaned. “I don’t even know what to do about Derek. I’m _married_ to him.”

“I’m aware,” the sheriff said with a tiny smile.

“Well, I’m kind of having trouble with that. It doesn’t make any sense! I mean, I…” he cut an uncomfortable look at his father, “I’ve kind of felt for a while that I might not be totally, completely straight –”

John snorted.

“But admitting that I might be bi is a far cry from marrying Derek!”

His father was being far too calm about this, Stiles thought. He of all people should be affronted by the Derek-married-to-Stiles thing. If Stiles had ever day-dreamed about hooking up with Derek – not that he _had_ , but if he had – all those daydreams would have heavily featured a very disapproving father. Because _Derek_.

Instead, John gave Stiles a long, thoughtful look. “I never told you this – mostly because I didn’t have to, but situation being what it is, I guess now I do – but you and Derek… at first, it was hard to be okay with it. He was older, and there was that whole werewolf thing. I thought you could do better. Or I wanted you to pick someone safer.”

Stiles could see that. From a father’s perspective, Derek had to be a horrifying partner for one’s child to choose.

“But you weren’t a kid anymore, and it wasn’t my decision. So I had reservations, but I kept them to myself and watched you marry him. And I hoped for the best. I hoped you wouldn’t get your heart broken.” ‘Or end up dead for loving a werewolf,’ John’s expression said, even if he didn’t say as much.

“I don’t have those reservations anymore. I’ve seen you two together, and over the years you guys have become… solid. It works. You’re both… steadier.”

Stiles’ lips twitched. “Earlier today, Derek said I tamed him.”

“You do. And he’s tamed you. And truth be told, you both could have done with some taming. The world’s a better place for it.”

That startled a coarse laugh out of Stiles.

“I’m not saying you have to do anything you’re not ready for yet. You can stay here as long as you want. I’m just saying that I’ve seen you genuinely happy with Derek. And the same goes for him with you.”

“I’m not breaking up with him,” Stiles mumbled. Because he couldn’t. He had no right. He couldn’t zap into this strange universe, fuck up Derek’s life and alternate-Stiles’ life, and then just pop right out again. He owed other-Stiles that much. But that didn’t mean he could play the part.

He couldn’t be Stiles Hale. He didn’t know how to be. All he could be was Stiles Stilinski.

The only problem was, this world didn’t have a place for Stiles Stilinski.

********************

Stiles didn’t sleep for shit that night. There was a laundry list of reasons why. Finding himself in an alternate universe where he was twenty-four and married to Derek Hale was just the top reason. The cut on his forehead that still hurt like a bitch didn’t help. Or that he didn’t have his pillow.

That and he’d finally looked at himself in the mirror while getting ready for bed, and it was weirding him out. He looked _different_. Not remarkably. He was still clearly Stiles, nobody from high school he ran into on the street would mistake him or fail to recognize him. The problem was that in his head, Stiles looked seventeen. The guy looking back at him was most definitely _not_ seventeen. He was still on the skinny side, but his shoulders were broader, his arms bulkier, his face more square and angular. He had an actual five-o-clock shadow.

Stiles peeled out of his clothes to take a shower (and hopefully scour off the funk of inter-dimensional travel), and he felt weird looking at a man’s body in the reflection. He wasn’t ripped, but he wasn’t too shabby, either. Being married to Derek was probably enough to shame Stiles into _not_ pulling a Jabba the Hutt. There was a scar on the left side of his chest, about eight inches long, that he had no idea how he got.

When he turned toward the shower he caught a glimpse of black in the corner of his eye and twisted in front of the mirror to look at the tattoo on the back of his right shoulder. A thick black line traced the outline of a howling wolf’s head on his skin. It was simple, yet powerful. Shit, the wolf motif from the house carried over to his _body_. He wondered how many times he passed out in the chair while they were doing that – and how dead-set he must have been on getting the tattoo to put up with, you know, the actual tattooing.

Really, Stiles’ life was full of suck. So that hadn’t changed across universes. When he got back, he should write a book. ‘How to Suck in All Realities’. Actually, no… that sounded like a bad fellatio how-to manual.

So he woke up almost more tired than he was when he’d gone to sleep, then realized he had been in such a hurry to get out of the house where he lived with Derek that he hadn’t grabbed his phone. Or laptop (because in his mind he thought it would be _here_ , at his father’s house). He had nothing to entertain himself with while his father was at work. He couldn’t even walk over to Scott’s house, because Scott didn’t live there anymore.

A bored Stiles was a danger to civilized society.

He eyed the two items he’d brought with him from the house. His hand lingered over the photo album a second, but he wasn’t ready to open that can of worms. His mind raced just imagining the images he’d find inside. Pictures of _him_ living a life he didn’t know. Pictures of a Stiles in love with Derek.

He picked up the book instead and settled on the couch to read.

********************

Stiles was a good way into ShineGold – and still had no idea if this was his book or Derek’s, which continued to drive him crazy – when his father came home. 

“Hey, Dad.” He set the book down on the end table and moved to get off the couch when he froze.

Because Derek had walked into the house right after John. In uniform.

And yes, it was as hot as Stiles imagined it would be.

Stiles blinked. “Um… hey.”

“Hi.” There was an awkward pause where Derek stood in the foyer with a bag held at his side and Stiles sat on the couch at a loss for words. “I brought over some of your stuff.” He held out a duffel bag.

Stiles got up, took the bag, and opened it to look inside. Right away he saw his pillow, the side of a laptop case, and a cell phone.

“ _Dude_ , thanks. These are all the things I was missing.” Then he looked up at Derek and winced. “I mean, not that I didn’t miss _you_ , or… uh…”

The unintended slight hurt Derek, his face betrayed that much, but he gave a dismissive wave. “I made peace with your affair with your laptop years ago.”

Stiles snorted.

“I invited Derek to join us for dinner,” John said on his way to the kitchen.

“If that’s okay,” Derek added, looking over at Stiles.

“No. I mean, yeah, sure. It’s cool. I don’t mind.”

He anticipated it being awkward as fuck, like everything else had been, but he couldn’t avoid Derek forever.

But it was, in fact, not bad. They ordered pizza (and Stiles wanted to object on behalf of his father’s cardiovascular system, but John was clearly using the situation to his advantage to indulge in a meat lover’s), and Stiles mostly listened to his dad and Derek talk shop. About a vandal who’d been breaking into the bus lot and putting graffiti on the school buses, which was such a big problem because a lot of it was inappropriate and those buses picked up elementary and grade school kids. About a station picnic a lot of the staff were planning on attending (and from the uneasy pause Stiles got the feeling he’d been planning on going, too, but now no one wanted to assume he was on board). About the logistics of the extradition of a guy in lock-up who had outstanding warrants for arrest in a neighboring county. About an inexplicable but severe shortage of coffee cups at the station (John suspected an office thief, but Derek refused to use his sense of smell to track down such a trivial criminal).

It was kind of relaxing, actually, to just be there but not be the center of attention. Of course, Derek’s eyes landed on Stiles a lot during dinner – Derek wasn’t even subtle about it, and Stiles didn’t pretend not to see it – but it wasn’t stressful the way Stiles had been dreading it would be.

Of course, his father had his own plans. After dinner, he decided they needed dessert. Specifically ice cream. Because it was the one dessert item they definitely didn’t have in the house.

“I’ll just run to the store and get some,” John said as he moved toward the front door, leaving no room for anyone to object. “I won’t be long!”

Then Stiles and Derek were left alone.

Stiles glared at the door where his father had fled. “He wasn’t even subtle about that.”

“Not even close,” Derek agreed. Then he studied Stiles. “How are you?”

Stiles shrugged one shoulder and picked at a leftover piece of crust on his plate. “Same as yesterday, mostly. What, uh… what about you?”

Derek pulled back a little. “Fine.”

Stiles quirked an eyebrow. “Uh huh.” But he got it. He did. Just for something to do, he stood and picked up his plate and his father’s to take them to the sink. 

When he came back for Derek’s, Derek turned purposefully toward him. Stiles froze, watching Derek.

“Stiles, would you…” Derek bit his lip (that should not be _cute_ , god damnit), “Would you let me do something? I promise it’s nothing lurid.”

Stiles took a step back. “Umm… yeah, sure, I guess.”

Derek stood, considered Stiles cautiously a moment, then stepped right up into his personal space and buried his face in Stiles’ neck. 

“Oh!” Stiles stammered, then stood stock-still as Derek breathed deeply against Stiles’ skin. Pretty much pegging a ten on the weird-o-meter, but definitely not the worst thing to ever happen to Stiles. Derek was warm, and his stubble tickled, and he honestly didn’t smell too bad himself. Woodsy and musky and wild.

Derek took deep lung-fulls of Stiles’ scent. His hands drifted up to Stiles’ hips and held him in place. Stiles doubted Derek noticed, but Stiles sure as hell did.

It didn’t last long, objectively, but subjectively was a whole other story before Derek sighed and rested his forehead ahead Stiles’ shoulder. His fingers flexed against Stiles’ hipbones.

“Ummm…” Stiles mumbled, because Derek needed to quit that before Stiles embarrassed himself.

Derek tensed and pulled away. “Sorry.” He leaned back against the table and averted his eyes.

“No, it’s okay… uh, care to explain?”

Derek blushed. “I have trouble sleeping without your smell.”

“But… I mean, surely you go out of town for work and stuff.” Stiles’ childhood was full of sleep-overs with Scott when he was little then alone at home when he was older because his dad had to go out of town.

“Yeah, sometimes… but we always talk on the phone or Skype, plus I know when I get home… just, this is different.”

Stiles swallowed. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough.”

In the ensuing awkward silence, Stiles took a closer look at Derek. He could see tired, now that he looked for it. He could see frustration, too. He felt bad about that. Derek didn’t deserve this.

“So…” Stiles snatched up Derek’s plate and took it over to the sink. “I was thinking of talking to Deaton, see if he has any ideas how this happened and how to fix it.”

“I hope you have a Ouija board, then.”

“Huh?”

“Deaton died three years ago.”

“How?”

Derek sat back down in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face. “There was a _situation_ with a harpy that got messy. Deaton was killed. And you… you got pretty torn up.”

“Is that where I got this scar?” Stiles rubbed at his chest with the heel of his hand.

Derek nodded, face grim. His expression spoke volumes. 

“I’m guessing it was bad.”

“Bitch ripped right down to your ribcage. When I found you, I thought you were dead. There was so much _blood_. They had to stitch your muscles back together. You had to do physical therapy for months.” Derek looked kind of ill at the memory.

“Damn. Well, it turned out okay. I mean, I’m still alive.” He pondered a moment. “What story do we use with people for how I got hurt?”

“Car accident. Because the Jeep _was_ totaled, just not at the same time you got hurt. They both happened on the same night, though, so people bought it without question. The Jeep got hauled to the scrap yard, you got hauled to the emergency room,” Derek held up both hands like he was weighing the one against the other.

“Ah, man! My Jeep? Damn… I was hoping she was just in storage somewhere.”

“No such luck. But I gave you the Camaro, so you got over it pretty fast. Worked as an incentive to make you do your PT, too.”

Stiles whistled. “ _Nice_. Do I want to know what happened to the Camaro?”

“Nothing horrific. We traded it in for the Honda earlier this year.”

“Lame,” Stiles sing-songed.

Derek laughed. “The Honda’s practical.”

“So is fiber. That doesn’t make it fun.”

Derek shook his head with a chuckle.

Stiles opened his mouth to ask about the house, about how long they’d lived there, but stopped short when he realized those questions would lead to the conversation about when they started living together. About when they got married.

He wasn’t up for that yet.

“So if Deaton’s dead, who’s your emissary?”

That wiped the smile off Derek’s face. “There isn’t one.”

“But… I thought all packs had one.”

“What _pack_?” Derek snarled.

Oh… wow, he’d stepped in something there. Stiles blinked at Derek, taken aback by the bitterness in his voice. He’d been so nice lately that Stiles almost forgot how broody he could get, but nope, there it was. Sourwolf at his finest. It was kind of comforting to see that growly, grumpy side of Derek. _That_ Stiles knew.

That still left the problem of how he was going to get to the bottom of this mirror universe. “Okay… well, then who do we go to for answers when something hinky happens?”

“Between you and Lydia, we usually do okay.”

Well, _great_. Stiles was the one who was supposed to have all the answers? Or at least a clue? Talk about fucked seven ways from Sunday. “Okay, that’s a problem.” Stiles drummed his knuckles on the counter. “I’ll call Lydia, then.”

“ _Don’t_ –” Derek started, then he bit back his next words. Clearly rephrased them. “Let me talk to Lydia.”

“Fine, whatever.” Stiles narrowed a look at Derek. He looked twitchy all of a sudden. Were they on the outs with Lydia or something? If so, Stiles having a big chunk of missing time would probably clomp his clumsy ass all over whatever had them tip-toeing around Lydia. So yes, fine, let Derek who _wasn’t_ missing the last seven years talk to her. Whatever they had to do to get some answers.

At least he had his laptop. He could do what he’d always done. Scour the internet for clues.

“I should get going,” Derek said wearily as he stood.

“Yeah, sure. Look, I’m…” When Derek turned toward him, Stiles rambled, “I feel like I should apologize, though I’m not really sure what I’m sorry _for_. For not being your Stiles, I guess?” That sounded stupid, but it was true.

Derek stilled and looked intently at Stiles. There was something frighteningly tender in his gaze. “You are my Stiles. We’ll get your memories back somehow, I promise.”

If only it were that easy. Because Stiles kind of thought he wouldn’t mind this life. It was not at all what he expected, but it didn’t seem so terrible, either.


	4. Chapter 4

“Come on, you stupid piece of shit,” Stiles growled at his laptop perched on the bed, hunched over in the chair he’d dragged over from the corner.

“Problem?” his dad asked as he poked his head in Stiles’ room.

“Ugh, yes. I can’t log into my laptop because I don’t know the freaking password. I’ve tried all my usuals, and nothing works.” Stiles looked at the bed his laptop was sitting on, then sat up, “And this fugly bedspread. That’s my other immediate problem.”

John chuckled. “Blame Melissa McCall… she was cleaning out some rooms and her storage unit and asked if I wanted them.”

“And you said _yes_? This is a monstrosity.”

“It’s a guest room. It just needed linens, not style.”

“Well, you definitely didn’t get any,” Stiles said. “Hey! Can I borrow your laptop?”

“Sorry, son… I left it at the station. I didn’t know you’d need it.”

The universe utterly hated Stiles. 

His father came into the room already dressed for bed. He hadn’t been surprised when he got home earlier with the ice cream and Derek was gone. And he hadn’t said anything about it, either.

Stiles knew his luck wouldn’t hold out.

“So… how did it go with Derek?”

“You mean that blatant attempt on your part to get us to talk?” Stiles grunted and turned back to his computer. “He sniffed me,” Stiles muttered distractedly as he tried yet another incorrect password. At the strange noise his father made, he looked over and saw the sheriff stifling a snicker. “And that doesn’t surprise you, does it?”

“No. He does it a lot.”

“Wonderful,” Stiles drawled sarcastically. ‘ _the password you have entered is incorrect_ ’

“Do you… uh… I could ask him to stop.”

“No,” Stiles sighed, “it’s actually not… I don’t mind.”

That got a hopeful look on his father’s face. Like maybe Stiles didn’t mind because some of his memories were coming back. No… it just wasn’t unpleasant generally speaking to have Derek Hale all up in his space.

Stiles tapped absently at his keyboard, then hit enter because a string of Ks was as good a guess as any at this point. No dice.

“He misses you, you know,” his father offered gently.

Stiles ruffled a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know.” Stiles gave up on his laptop and turned his full attention to his father. “What would you do if you were me?”

“Are you honestly asking for my advice?”

Stiles nodded.

John considered his answer a moment, then he went over to sit on the side of the bed facing Stiles. After a moment organizing his thoughts, John said, “I think you need to go home. I’m not saying that because I don’t enjoy having you here. You know I do. But I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere hiding from your marriage in your childhood bedroom.”

“But it’s not _my_ marriage! It was some other Stiles who married Derek!”

“I don’t agree.”

Stiles opened and closed his mouth like a fish.

“Maybe you don’t remember the last seven years, but even still, I know my son. I know _you_. You’re not all that different from the way you remember yourself in high school. You have all the same qualities. All the same insecurities. And I know that being with Derek can make you happy. I just don’t want you to deny yourself the chance to figure that out.”

Stiles crossed his arms and slouched back in the chair. “I can’t make myself love him.”

“I know… but I really don’t think you’re going to have to. Let’s say, worse comes to worse, and you don’t get back your memories. Then you fall in love with him again.”

“You don’t _know_ that’s what would happen,” Stiles argued.

“No… but I’d bet money on it.”

His dad obviously wanted what he thought would make Stiles happy. Stiles just didn’t know if he could _be_ that person. His father said just be around him again and it would happen. Easier said than done.

“Just think about it,” John said, reaching out to rest a hand on Stiles’ shoulder before he got up and left the room.

Stiles spent a good few minutes staring at his laptop login screen resentfully, then he grabbed his cell phone. That, at least, wasn’t locking him out.

He found his text message conversation log with Derek and scrolled up at random to start reading.

_Stiles: around 8?_

_Derek: sure_

_Stiles: great! btw it’s black tie :)_

_Derek: nevermind_

_Stiles: no take-backs_

_Derek: i hate ties_

_Stiles: would you really back out of the charity auction because of a tie?_

_Stiles: kids with cancer are counting on you_

_Derek: you’re a horrible person_

_Stiles: you love me anyway_

_Derek: lucky for the kids_

_Stiles: want to grab something to eat before? you pick_

_Derek: is this to make up for making me wear a tie?_

_Stiles: maybe_

_Derek: then I’d rather you make it up to me after ;)_

For the love of all that was holy, Derek used an _emoticon_. Stiles scrolled down a little further and picked up reading.

_Derek: did you put eggs on the list?_

_Stiles: you can’t make requests for your b-day breakfast in bed surprise_

_Stiles: it’s supposed to be a surprise_

_Stiles: you suspect nothing_

_Derek: ok I suspect nothing_

_Derek: but did you get eggs?_

_Stiles: yes I got eggs_

_Derek: love you_

_Stiles: love you too_

Stiles frowned uncomfortably, checking the current date on his phone and the date of the conversation. He hoped Derek’s birthday had already come and gone. He hated to think there were eggs sitting in the fridge Stiles meant to make for Derek’s birthday breakfast that he never got.

And, of course, the easily bandied L-word. That was uncomfortable to see, knowing that affection had been there but now it wasn’t and the only difference was Stiles.

Shaking it off, Stiles looked down at the last conversation he had via text message before things went screwy, mere hours before he woke up with a husband he hadn’t had when he went to sleep the night before.

_Derek: is it okay if mrs. m brings that stuff over next friday?_

_Stiles: that’s fine_

_Stiles: remind me to get her some flowers for giving us her old stuff :)_

“Oh, hell no,” Stiles said under his breath, then brought up the text window and typed:

_Stiles: we better not be getting any blankets from scott’s mom, because this thing my dad got from her should be burned_

Before he could think about it, he hit send.

A few seconds later, Derek texted back.

_Derek: it’s not blankets. just furniture for the office_

A pause, then a second text:

_Derek: we got our coffee table from her_

Stiles thought back to the house and the coffee table in the living room. That wasn’t so bad. So Mrs. McCall had shitty taste in bed covers, but her choice of furniture wasn’t so bad.

_Derek: but if you don’t like it we can still burn it_

Stiles laughed, quickly slapping a hand over his mouth at the sound. He thought about what his dad had said, about trying, and let his thumbs hover over the qwerty board before he texted:

_Stiles: want to do dinner tomorrow? without my dad?_

Stiles debated sending it a full minute before he clicked the button.

Derek’s response was immediate.

_Derek: yes_

Stiles swallowed nervously.

_Stiles: cool. pick me up after you get off work?_

God, it felt like they were dating, which was ridiculous. They were _married_. But it was what Stiles could manage at the time.

_Derek: ok see you then_

_Stiles: see you_

That done, Stiles switched over to his contacts, found Scott, and pressed the green phone icon.

It rang twice before Scott answered. “Hey, Stiles!”

“Scott! Buddy! Boy, is it good to hear your voice,” Stiles sagged back in the chair, relief washing over him.

“What do you mean? We talked on Saturday. Rene, honey, don’t play with that.” A muffled sound of a small girl’s voice arguing. “I know it’s pretty, but Mommy will flick a tail if you break it.” Then he came back to the phone. “Sorry… the munchkin’s into everything today.”

“That’s fine.”

“Re, you want to say hi to Uncle Stiles?”

“Um, actually…” Stiles started, but suddenly there was a bubbly child’s voice coming through loud and clear.

“Hi, Uncle Stiles!”

“Heeeey… sweetie? Umm… how are you?”

“We went to the park today and I got to fly a kite!”

“You did? That sounds fun.” Stiles was breaking into a flop sweat. Holy shit, he was talking to Scott’s _kid_.

“It had a princess on it. And Daddy tripped on a spinkler.”

“Sprinkler, baby,” Scott corrected. “And Uncle Stiles doesn’t need to hear about that.”

“Yes, he does! It was funny!”

Stiles chuckled. He had a feeling he was going to like Scott’s daughter.

“When you come visit, will you fly kites with me, Uncle Stiles?”

“Oh, uh… yeah… you bet.” He scrambled to remember the pet-name Scott had used. “Re.”

“And Uncle Derek!”

“I’m… I’m sure Uncle Derek would love to fly kites with you.”

“Okay, bye!”

Stiles’ head was still spinning when Scott came back on the phone. “Sorry about that. She’s a pistol. So what’s going on?”

Stiles sucked in a breath and wondered how exactly to tactfully go about…

“I woke up yesterday with no memory of the last seven years.”

Or he could just do it like that.

There was a thick silence over the phone. Then Scott asked incredulously, “You _what_?”

“I woke up yesterday morning in a strange house – _my_ house – and do not know how I got there. Last thing I remember was cramming for Mrs. Sheridan’s chemistry final, then I was waking up in bed with Derek.”

“What the fuck, dude?”

“I know!”

“Did you go to the doctor?”

“Yes, but not for that. I had to get stitches because I fell on the nightstand and broke my fall with my face.”

“So, wait, you… Kira! Kira, get over here. Something’s wrong with Stiles. He’s got amnesia. Yes, I’m serious! Come here.”

There was a change in the call quality when Scott switched to speaker. 

“Stiles?” Kira asked, “What’s Scott going on about?”

“I woke up yesterday morning with no memory of the last seven years.”

Dead silence.

“Are you joking?” Kira asked.

“No, I’m not joking! I am the polar opposite of joking. I have a husband I don’t remember marrying and a house I don’t remember moving into and just _no_ , I am all kinds of not joking right now.”

That clearly took a few seconds to sink in.

“Have you been to a specialist?” Kira asked.

“No… they wanted to do an MRI, but I wouldn’t let them.”

“What? Why the hell not?” Scott asked.

“Because _nogitsune_ , dumbass,” Stiles ground out between clenched teeth.

“Stiles, you…” Scott faltered, voice low and careful. “That was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, maybe if you can remember the last seven years it was, but it wasn’t a long time ago to me. For me, it _just happened_.” Stiles took a deep breath to calm himself. “Do either of you know of anything that could have dropped me into an alternate universe? A spell or a curse or… a wormhole monster or something?”

The silence on the other end was not encouraging.

“Have you asked Lydia?”

“Derek said he would talk to her.”

“Is Derek there?” Scott asked.

“No, I’m staying at my dad’s house.”

Another heavy pause.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Did I mention the part that in my reality I’m seventeen and don’t have a husband?”

“Holy crap, you really aren’t kidding,” Scott muttered.

“I told you I wasn’t.” Stiles rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“But you’re not… I mean, are you seventeen-year-old you?” 

“No, I’m… I’m however old your Stiles is. Which I guess would be twenty-four. But I don’t remember getting here.”

“That is messed up,” Scott mused.

“Believe me, I am so painfully well aware,” Stiles countered.

“I’ll… I’ll ask my mom, see if she knows anything,” Kira broke in.

“Thanks, Kira.”

“Man, I wish Deaton was still alive,” Scott said under his breath. “Oh, crap, did you…”

“Yeah, I know about Deaton. Derek told me earlier about a harpy. He got kind of cagey about it, to be honest.”

“You were really hurt,” Scott said diplomatically, “it freaked him out.”

It was still hard to imagine Derek caring that much about him. Enough to pull his ass out of a fire, sure… but to lose his shit because Stiles was hurt? No… that pasta was not sticking to the fridge.

“We’ll both look into what could have caused this,” Scott promised. “Don’t worry, okay, Stiles? We’ll take care of it.”

Just hearing that made Stiles feel better. He’d talked to Scott and Kira, Derek was going to talk to Lydia. His friends were on the job. His pack had his back. If they could free him from the fucking nogitsune, they could fix this.

“Thank you.”

“Absolutely. Look out for yourself, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Goodnight.”


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles slept better just for having his pillow. It wasn’t the same pillow he had at seventeen, of course, but it still had that unnamable magical power to let him sleep.

A good night’s sleep did wonders for his attitude, even if he was still trapped in a world not his own.

It had not, however, gifted him with the password to his laptop.

So he had to find something to do with himself until Derek came to pick him up for dinner.

He got dressed to go out for a walk – even got as far as the front door – when he asked himself what would happen if he ran into someone who knew him. And he probably would. He’d lived in Beacon Hills his whole life. If he ran into someone he’d known in high school, that was fine. He could bluff his way through that. But what if he ran into one of his coworkers from the cancer non-profit? Someone Stiles had met within the last seven years. He couldn’t bullshit an encounter with one of them.

And what if there were other hunters besides the Argents who had moved into town in the last few years that knew he was married to a werewolf? What if there were people he should _know_ to stay away from but he didn’t and he ended up getting jumped and used as bait to put Derek in danger?

What if there were other werewolves in town – like the alpha pack that came through Beacon Hills wreaking havoc his sophomore year – who had a beef with the local pack and would relish the chance to kill Derek’s human husband the first chance they got?

In just a few minutes standing with his hand on the front door handle, he’d worked himself into a quiet meltdown about everything that could go wrong if he stepped outside without an ambassador to the present as a guide.

Nope… venturing outside on his own was not in the cards for Stiles today.

He kicked off his shoes then tried to find something indoors to occupy him.

He briefly lingered over the photo album he’d taken from Derek’s house, tempted to open it and finally peek into this life he had supposedly led. He’d already dealt with Scott’s daughter over the phone, and that wasn’t so bad. Maybe he wouldn’t have some kind of identity crisis meltdown seeing himself in pictures and not remembering any of it.

But it was still so fucking daunting.

He made a deal with himself. If tonight with Derek went okay, he’d look. Why torture himself with the Stiles version of happily-ever-after if he was going to nuke it in this permutation of his existence?

He ended up spending most of the day reading ShineGold, because he was _determined_ to figure out whose book it was. The idea that Stiles and Derek blurred together at any juncture to such a degree that Stiles couldn’t immediately and confidently label something a ‘Derek thing’ or a ‘Stiles thing’ was maddening. It shouldn’t be ambiguous. They were very different people. That should bear out in their interests clear as day.

But it fucking _wasn’t_ , and it was driving Stiles nuts.

Stiles was pretty far into the book when a knock on the door startled him off the couch. He narrowly avoided another ‘falling off furniture’ injury as he scrambled to the door, book in hand with his thumb marking his place, and opened the door.

Derek was standing there in his work uniform, gun at hip, looking like a god damn strip-o-gram. Asshole. Getting a peek of this Stiles’ life was just cruel, because he’d go back to his world and his life where there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d land a guy like Derek Hale.

This is your life, Stiles Stilinski, and it sucks.

His stunned silence made Derek raise his eyebrows questioningly. “You okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah! Sorry… I lost track of the time. Come on in.”

Derek followed him inside, closed the door, then turned to watch Stiles slide a bookmark in ShineGold and set it on the coffee table.

“I wondered where that went,” Derek noted absently.

Stiles rounded on Derek eagerly. “This is _yours_?”

Derek gave him a look that asked why he was being so weird about a book as he walked over and picked up the tattered novel. “Yeah… why?”

“I just… I don’t know… never pegged you for a scifi fan?”

Derek turned the book over to look at the back. “I like the characters.”

“Really? Who’s your favorite?”

“Sik.”

“Wha… she’s one of the bad guys!”

“You think so?” Derek gave him a look like he was enjoying this, talking about one of his favorite books with Stiles. He gathered from Derek’s keen interest that they’d never discussed this book before. So just a Derek thing, then. That was a new layer of fascinating, since Stiles had gotten far enough into the story to have opinions about the characters.

“She’s totally a villain, dude,” Stiles argued.

“Guess I saw her as more of a victim of circumstance.” Derek shrugged. “I kind of identified with her.”

“How’s that?”

“Everyone judged her for what she was. She had to fight stereotypes all the time.”

From a werewolf’s perspective, yeah, maybe he could see that. But fucking _Sik_?

Derek smiled and handed the book to Stiles. “Maybe you should finish it.”

“Maybe I will.” Stiles put the book down on the coffee table. Then he turned toward Derek and asked, “So… any idea where you want to go?”

“Chinese?”

“Sounds good to me.”

***************

Dinner was nice, even if they stuck to safe topics during their meal. It was a verbal tap-dance where Stiles felt like he was warming up to the bigger questions, and he could tell Derek knew that. And yet he let Stiles work up to it at his own pace. Stiles could have kissed him for that. Figuratively, of course. Not, like, literally kiss Derek Hale. Even if he did look dead-sexy in that deputy uniform.

Not that Stiles noticed. 

The conversation centered on work at the station and Rene’s kite-flying and sweet and sour chicken.

After dinner, Derek drove them out to the preserve, where they exited the car and set out on a leisurely stroll side-by-side through the trees. This felt familiar, at least. He’d spent more than his fair share of time in the woods with Derek. For other people that might be a strange thing to say, but in this strange universe it was normal to Stiles.

Stiles peered out into the trees ahead of them. “Did you ever rebuild your family’s old house?”

“No. I actually sold the property out here about three years ago.”

“Really? That’s kind of surprising.” Stiles always felt like the Hale land was in Derek’s blood… like he would rather cut off his arm than give it up.

Derek shrugged. “There were more ghosts than anything out here. Guess I was tired of living like that. I wanted to start thinking about my future; stop dwelling on the past.” That was, like, massive personal growth for Derek. Stiles kind of wanted to congratulate him after-the-fact, but he didn’t dare interrupt Derek’s narrative.

Derek stepped on a twig just to hear it snap. “I used a chunk of the money from the sale for the down-payment on our house, but even then there was still enough left over to put in savings.”

It was an opening, and Stiles knew it. He took a steeling breath. “So… how long have we had the house?”

“Two years.”

Stiles did the math in his head. “You say you sold the property three years ago?”

Derek gave him the side-eye and a wary nod.

“That timing seems kind of… not a coincidence.”

“It wasn’t,” Derek conceded lowly. He rolled his neck like he was working out the kinks. “I swore to myself if you made it, I’d make some changes in my life. I’d do better. I’d… be worth you.”

Stiles was flabbergasted. “Whoa… I… I don’t know what to say.” Stiles kind of figured he was always the one feeling not-good-enough in their relationship. Because _Derek Fucking Hale_. He was the guy all the girls and half the boys in school wanted to get with. Older and mysterious and dark and gorgeous. What did scrawny Stiles bring to the table to even compete with that?

Sarcasm and hyperactivity? Please.

“That’s also when I got the job working with Dad at the station,” Derek added, like an afterthought.

“So is that… did we get married then, too?” Made sense. If that life-threatening injury had Derek turning his life around, selling his old family land and getting an honest job, it would figure that’s when they tied the knot, too.

“No,” Derek smiled, “we’ve been married for five years.”

That made Stiles’ jaw drop and he physically came to a halt. Derek stopped walking to turn and face him. “Five…” Stiles stammered. “Are you telling me I married you just a year out of high school?”

“Much to your father’s chagrin. He never said anything, but I know he thought I was the wolf that climbed into your nursery and stole you out of your crib.”

“Okay, didn’t need that mental image.” Though he was probably right about John’s opinion at the time.

“You were only nineteen.” Derek looked sheepish. “In hindsight, maybe we rushed into things. But it didn’t feel too soon at the time. Honestly, it still doesn’t.” Derek tipped his head in quiet acquiescence to traditional wisdom, even if it wasn’t for them. “But I can see how other people would think that.”

Stiles looked down at his left hand, tracing his thumb along the underside of his wedding band, then looked over at Derek. “So how did we end up together?”

A clouded look came over Derek’s face then, and he started walking again. Stiles caught up and fell back into step beside him. This, at least, was easy. Comfortable. Even when they hadn’t really been friends, it hadn’t been hard to be around Derek. Strange, maybe, but true. You always knew where you stood with Derek. If he wanted to bash your head into a wall, you pretty much knew it.

After dealing with creeps like Peter Hale and Gerard Argent, one grew to appreciate brutal honesty.

“The first part isn’t a very happy story,” Derek started haltingly.

Stiles snorted. “Now that actually sounds about right.” Their lives tended to have an overabundance of suck. Stiles probably wouldn’t have believed a happy story.

Derek hummed in agreement. “It was right around the time you graduated high school, and you and I were both in pretty ugly places.

“You were still raw from what happened with the nogitsune – you kept it from your friends, but I know how bad it was for you for a long time after that. Then your best friend moved to San Francisco, and you were enrolled in your first semester of community college and… struggling.

“Me… my whole pack had fallen apart. Scott, Isaac, and Kira moved away, Lydia left for college, Allison was dead, Peter kidnapped Malia and disappeared with her –”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up. Peter _kidnapped_ Malia?!”

Derek scowled and let loose a low growl. “There’s been a missing person’s report out on her since it happened. Peter found out she was his biological daughter and figured that gave him the right? I don’t know, I can’t begin to understand what goes on in that man’s head. That was the last straw with my uncle, though. Even if he came back, I’d run him right out of town. Or kill him, if I have to. We’re still looking for Malia, but it’s been years.” Derek shook his head in disgust. “We all would have been better off if Peter had just stayed dead.”

Stiles couldn’t argue that. Peter was always a creep and a half. A murderer, a sociopath, and now a kidnapper and felon at large. No wonder Derek hadn’t wanted to talk about it before. Stiles wouldn’t either if that was his gene pool.

“Anyway, in a short amount of time, I lost nearly my entire pack. And I’d already gone through that once, so I was…”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say ‘moody’ was an understatement.”

Derek huffed and nodded.

“We started hanging out just because we were the only ones left. Not that we were having fun. That’s not what it was about. It was all… anger and unhappiness.”

“We were wallowing in our misery.”

“Basically.” Derek paused to glance off into the distance, perhaps catching the scent of something, then he continued, “Then one night you just hit your breaking point. You found out you were failing your intro stats class and said you wanted to run away. So we did.”

Stiles jolted to a stop again. “We _what_ now?”

Derek patiently walked back to Stiles and reached out to coax him forward with a slide of his hand along Stiles’ forearm. Stiles shivered and moved forward with him. 

“You and I both went home, packed a couple of bags, and hit the road.”

“Oh my god. Where did we go?”

“A little bit of everywhere. Los Angeles. The Grand Canyon. Yellowstone. Vegas.”

“Oh shit, tell me we did _not_ get married in Vegas!”

“No, we didn’t get married in Vegas. We did catch a burlesque show, though.” Derek winked. “Mostly, we just drove. We’d stop for the night when we got tired – usually shared a room, because it’s not like either one of us had much money – and it was… freeing. We just left our lives behind. None of our shit mattered out there.”

It sounded like it.

Derek shrugged. “Somewhere along the way, between the crappy diner food and cheap motels and miles of highway, it stopped being about anger. And we started to become friends. I mean, real friends. In such close quarters, you get to know someone really well. Before long, I’d say you knew me better than anyone in my life ever has.”

Stiles couldn’t speak for his alter-ego, but he could not imagine the sentiment was one-sided.

Stiles wished he could remember that. It sounded transformative. He hoped for moments like that in life. And apparently he’d had one, but he couldn’t fucking remember it.

“We were on the road for almost four months. Your dad was not happy about it at first, you dropping out of school to wander the country with a werewolf, but by the end I think he could hear in your voice when you called home that you were… lighter. And I was, too. We were both healing.”

Derek had a remarkably peaceful look on his face. Stiles wondered if that was what Derek had looked like on the road. He tried to imagine crawling out of a motel bed at the crack of dawn in some no-name town in the middle of nowhere with this man, getting into the car with him, and just _going_.

Just the notion itself was romantic.

“When we got back to Beacon Hills, you withdrew from school and started working for the cancer non-profit. I started taking on odd jobs, construction mostly. But we made time for each other every single day. You were technically still living with your dad, but most nights you stayed at the loft.

“Eventually, we got together. We were only dating a month before I asked you to marry me.”

“God damn, Derek.”

Derek laughed. Outright, head-thrown-back _laughed_. “That’s _exactly_ what you said when I proposed. In my defense, it was on a full moon. I was ballsy.”

“That sounds like a terrible time to pop the question.”

“You said that then, too. You told me to ask again in a week if I still wanted to get married. So I did. And you said yes.”

“I wish I could remember all that,” Stiles mused aloud, not even really thinking about the fact Derek was with him and heard him. Maybe he didn’t care. Derek had this amazing story he shared with Stiles, but Stiles didn’t get to have it. He felt the loss of a life that had never been his.

“I didn’t have any family, all your friends were busy with their own lives, and we didn’t really want to wait for them to start our life together. So we did a quickie ceremony at the court house with the Justice of the Peace with just Dad and Deaton as witnesses.

“Then we went on our honeymoon at Disneyland.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Stiles choked. “ _Disneyland_?!”

“Four days and three nights,” Derek grinned. “Wedding present from Dad.”

“ _Oh man_! I can’t believe I had my fucking honeymoon at Disneyland! Did we go on every rollercoaster? _Please_ tell me we went on every rollercoaster!”

“Several times.”

“ _Holy shit_ , that is _awesome_! What the fuck, I am _jealous_ of _me_!”

Derek was smiling at him, and Stiles caught himself just staring. He looked happy. And happy Derek was captivating.

Stiles was in trouble.

Derek seemed to notice the tension at the same time Stiles did, because his gaze flicked down to Stiles’ mouth briefly before he cleared his throat and took a half-step back. “So… that’s our story. Full of recklessness, impulsivity, and immaturity enough to turn any parent’s hair white.”

“Fuck you, dude, our story is _badass_.” Stiles didn’t even care that he’d called it his. For just a little while he wanted to pretend like it was. His life as of a couple of days ago was trying to get through school and hanging out with his friends without letting his cracks show. Because Derek was right. Stiles was having a hard time after the nogitsune. Screaming nightmares kind of hard time. The kind of hard time where he didn’t honestly see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Derek was giving him that light. Showing him that there was an end to the suffering, even if it was in another reality. If this Stiles got a chance, maybe he’d get one, too.

With obvious displeasure, Derek looked down at his watch. “Well, I should get you back. I have work tomorrow.”

“Oh… right.” Stiles didn’t want the evening to end. He was enjoying himself. He was enjoying Derek’s company.

But things were going well. Too well. They probably should take a step back and let the dust settle. Stiles didn’t want to fuck things up for other Stiles because he wanted to taste his life, just for a little while.

So Stiles didn’t ask to go home with Derek, even though he really, really wanted to. Not to have _sex_ with him (although, should the opportunity arise, he wouldn’t necessarily turn it down), but just to get to know this Derek better. He was drawn to this version of Derek. This happy, loving, brighter Derek Hale. Everyone back in his reality thought dark, brooding Derek was sexy, but that’s just because they’d never seen _this_ Derek. It looked so much better on him.

********************

Derek walked Stiles back into his father’s house, mindful of the sheriff’s vehicle in the driveway and the fact that the lights were off upstairs.

In the living room, Stiles turned to face Derek and swallowed thickly. “So… I had a good time.” He kept his voice low so as not to wake John upstairs. And also because something tight in his chest wouldn’t let him speak any louder.

“Me too.” Derek licked his lips. “Maybe again tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that’s… that’d be nice.”

Derek nodded, shifted as if to go… then he looked imploringly over at Stiles. “Could… could I…?”

Stiles gave a wavering smile, trying not to hear the pounding of his heart… and pretending that Derek couldn’t hear it, either. “Need a hit, huh? Sure, go ahead.”

Derek stepped closer. Insanely closer. Hotly closer…

Then he reached out, snagged Stiles around the waist, and pulled the younger man into his chest. He just kind of tugged, and Stiles just _went_. Derek nuzzled the crook of Stiles’ neck with deep, saturating inhales. Stiles felt like his body just melted into it, despite himself. He figured his scent was becoming a permanent fixture in Derek’s bloodstream from how deeply he was breathing him in. And he could not find _any_ reason to complain.

Derek’s hand on his waist slipped around to the small of Stiles’ back. Stiles whimpered and his hand went up to Derek’s side of its own accord. Like he had that alien hand syndrome. He was blaming Dr. Strangelove for the way his fingers fisted the material of Derek’s shirt, too. Totally out of his control.

Derek pressed closer. Then he stopped scenting Stiles to place a soft kiss on his neck. It was so fucking _sweet_ and gentle and not meant for this Stiles, but Stiles didn’t fucking care. He closed his eyes and let it be for him, just for a moment.

Then Derek was stepping back, his hand sliding along Stiles to hold contact until the last possible moment. Stiles consciously opened his fingers to let go of Derek’s shirt.

“I… goodnight, Stiles,” Derek whispered, voice hoarse and thick with arousal. Laced with things that did a number on Stiles’ insides.

“Yeah, you… you too.”

Oh yeah. He was in so so _so_ much trouble.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Seems like every fic, there is one canon element that I feel I must dismiss, because it just doesn’t make sense. Here’s the willfully-disregarded canon element of this fic – that werewolves can’t take pictures. That was fun for an episode, but I don’t think the writers considered the implications. By that rule, in essence ‘outing’ werewolves is as easy as taking their picture? Too easy. What about school pictures (we know the Hale kids went to public school)? Driver’s licenses? Nope. Not buying it. So I’m throwing that piece of canon out the window.

As per his agreement with himself, the next day Stiles opened the photo album.

He spent hours flipping through the pages. They were in chronological order. It was like a visual journey through Derek’s verbal account yesterday in the woods.

Graduation pictures of him, Scott, Lydia, and Kira. Allison’s absence was like a knife to the gut. Isaac’s was surprising. Stiles had just assumed he finished out high school before he left, but clearly he’d assumed that part of the story, because Isaac was not in any of the pictures. A picture of John Stilinski at a barbeque party trying to ward off the camera and protect a plate of hot dogs at the same time. Stiles and Scott, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders, diplomas in hand. An image of the girls throwing their caps in the air. Scott laughing at them. Stiles, in the background, distracted. But Stiles knew it was more than that. He knew himself. That was the haunted look in an unguarded moment. That was the post-nogitsune thousand-yard stare. 

A picture of Stiles in his graduation gown leaning on the side of his Jeep, arms on the hood, cap next to his interlaced fingers, just staring out into the setting sun. A picture of a Jeep, a Camaro, a dirt bike, and a Toyota in the McCall driveway.

A picture of Scott and Kira in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, selfie-style. Wedding shots of Scott and Kira. A white dress and dry-cleaned tuxes and first dances.

A random picture of a black cat.

One of Stiles sprawled on the living room couch with a game console in hand. And it might have looked like any normal teenage boy, but again, that stare. That ‘something in me died and is still in there rotting’ glaze, and Stiles wanted to ask how the photographer didn’t see that. Why he/she would memorialize it in print. Why Stiles or Derek would put it in this album.

A photograph of Derek looking as angry and foul-tempered as Stiles had ever seen him in a booth at a restaurant. Like he was mad at the world and meant to rake his claws over the next living thing that got too close.

Then several pages of _unadulterated_ adventure.

Pictures from the road of highways and plaster dinosaurs and giant balls of twine. Sunsets and sunrises and everything in between of the American southwest. Saguaro cacti and a picture of the Camaro pulled off on a desert road while Derek changed a tire. Stiles face-planted in a generic motel bed, dead to the world. Pictures of both of them interchangeably behind the wheel, an ever-changing scenic backdrop out the driver’s side window beyond their profiles. A crowded sea of heads over Hollywood Boulevard. Scowling Derek next to the golden lions at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Stiles’ shoes on either side of the topmost point of the star on the Walk of Fame for Fleetwood Mac. A hill covered in windmills. Stiles bent over to peer into a prairie dog hole. The Grand Canyon. The first selfie of the two of them both wearing smiles, a painted canyon behind them and smiling faces in the forefront. Stiles looking miserable with a horrific sunburn across his nose and cheeks. Derek about to take a bite out of a huge hamburger in a diner at the very moment he glanced up at Stiles taking his picture. Stiles off the highway with his back to the car pissing on a bush. ‘Welcome to’ state line signs. Bison. Derek with his chin in his hand, leaning against a fence post watching elk graze. An image of wolves, tiny in the distance, crossing a clearing with Stiles in the forefront pointing a thumb over his shoulder and making a ‘zoikes!’ Scooby Doo face while Derek, on the other side of the photo, gave him a look of ‘Stiles is an idiot’. Stiles caught in mid-skitter trying to avoid the spray of Old Faithful. A selfie with the geyser of water in the background and Stiles and Derek, shirts wet, with arms around each other’s shoulders and grinning at the camera, hair water-logged and eyelashes holding water droplets like dew. Derek fast asleep, curled on his side in some random motel room. A close-up of Derek’s face in the same bed, eyes resolutely closed but mouth curled in a smile. The glitzy strip of Las Vegas at night, blurry because the camera sucked at low light. Derek walking down the colorful thoroughfare turned back to look at Stiles. A photo of Derek’s hand on Stiles’ shoulder as he was caught mid-fall into a fountain. Stiles soaked to the bone, grinning at the camera, while an attendant scowled in the back. A sphinx with search lights. Stiles, unaware of an audience, with his eyes closed and head tipped back just being in the moment with a casino in the back giving him a fuzzy halo.

Stiles studied so many pictures of the road trip. Four months of memories but barely a fraction of them captured on film. Stiles lingered over each one. Even the stupid pictures of desert flora.

Then it was Derek barefoot in his loft kitchen, pouring himself a bowl of cereal. Stiles carrying in a bag of take-out like it was a prize won in battle. Stiles at some kinds of functions, a few with Cancer Society banners in the background. Derek coming home from construction work filthy and sweat-soaked and smiling.

Then a picture of Stiles and Derek, both in suits sans ties, standing in the county courthouse. At first without rings. Group shots with John and the JP flanking the couple on either side. The two of them before the court official, looking at each other with bliss in their eyes. Then pictures wearing rings. A picture of Derek and Stiles kissing. Stiles laughing at something and hiding his face in Derek’s shoulder; Derek’s arm wrapped around Stiles and pressing his nose into his hair.

Then pictures of a castle. Stiles in front of it, looking like it was the best day of his life. Derek eating churros in flip-flops. Both of them grinning on either side of Mickey Mouse. Pictures of attractions and rides and some of the photos from rollercoasters where they were open-mouth screaming, grabbing on to each other. Stiles smiling on a park bench, a mouse-ear shaped ice cream in hand. Derek in the hotel room looking out over Anaheim. A strange, fuzzy action shot looking down at Stiles on the bed while Derek was obviously tickling him. A shot of a hot tub, Stiles in the foreground looking over his shoulder at the camera like the cat that ate the canary. Unclothed Derek sprawled magnificently in bed, spared indecency only by a corner of the sheet pulled over to cover his junk as he slept like a Greek god. A selfie of the two of them reclining in bed against the headboard, smiling tiredly after a day at the park. Stiles holding up the ‘do not disturb’ sign for the hotel room and giving the camera a wicked smirk. Stiles fast asleep, Mickey Mouse ears askew atop his head. Stiles belly-laughing at little kids in Jedi robes. Derek in some kind of argument with Goofy. One taken by a park photographer, with a tiny Disney logo in the bottom corner, of Derek with his arm around Stiles’ shoulder and Stiles with his arm hooked around Derek’s waist in the main square.

All too soon, Stiles reached the end of the album. He knew there was so much more to know. So much left untold. But the album ran out of pages. There was too much to their lives for one album to hold it all. That was kind of amazing.

Stiles sat for a long time with the album open to its last page on the coffee table, just kind of trying to soak it all in. He wanted that life. He wasn’t sure if it was even possible for him – if the Derek in his world was just too different from the Derek here for it to ever be in Stiles’ future – but _god_ , he wanted it.

*********************

“Stiles, my man,” Stiles somberly addressed his reflection, “you have seen better days.”

But then, he’d also seen worse. So there was that.

He was standing in front of the bathroom sink in just his boxers considering himself in the mirror. At first it had just been to assess his shave job, then he got distracted by the scar on his chest. It was years old, so he hadn’t thought much of it the first time he saw it, but now he knew that it had actually been a severe injury. At one point, Derek didn’t know if Stiles would live. And that had apparently scared the shit out of him. Derek loved his Stiles that fucking much.

“I don’t know how you got him, Mr. Hale,” Stiles told his twenty-four-year-old married self, “but _well done_.”

Then Stiles got to looking at the line of stitches above his eyebrow. The skin around the cut had purpled up nicely, making it look a lot worse than it felt. The edges of the held-together skin were scabbing, pink and raw where he’d accidentally touched it in the shower. It would probably leave a scar, too.

Other than that, he realized that he didn’t feel like he was looking through someone else’s eyes anymore when he saw his reflection. He was used to looking older. A lot about the gawky teenager he’d been he did not miss.

And that was a dangerous, bad, not-good thing.

“You can’t get used to this, Stiles,” he scolded himself. “This isn’t your reality. You haven’t earned this. Do _not_ want this.”

But who was he kidding? He did want it. At least part of him did. He wanted his mirror-twin’s life. He hadn’t gotten back in touch with Kira and Scott yet to see if they had any leads on how to undo what had happened to him. That was probably telling. Like maybe he was okay if this didn’t get fixed.

Stiles looked down at the wedding ring on his left hand. From the beginning of this trip down the rabbit hole, he’d never taken it off. At first because it didn’t feel like it was his place. And he didn’t want to hurt Derek. Then, well… Stiles was getting used to the weight of the ring. Like he’d feel naked without it now.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it.”

But as usual, Stiles was not listening to himself.

When he went back to his old bedroom to get dressed, he picked up his cell phone and found he had a message from Derek waiting for him. His heart did _not_ skip, because he wasn’t a teenager with a god damn crush, thank you very much. He was a grown man.

Or… well… anyway…

_Derek: finally getting the station blazer back from shop today. sick of only having 1 car_

Stiles texted back:

_Stiles: didn’t know we had another car_

Though it made sense. Up until a couple of months ago, they were both working, and that would be near impossible to do in a town like Beacon Hills without them both having their own car.

A protracted pause, then:

_Derek: sorry. i forgot_

Forgot that Stiles wasn’t the same guy Derek had been married to for the last five years. That just made Stiles feel bad all over again. Derek got some good news at work and his first thought was to pick up the phone and share it with his husband. But his husband wasn’t here… just this train-wreck of a Stiles that showed up and turned everyone’s lives upside down.

_Stiles: 2 cars is good. won’t be stuck at the house anymore_

Stiles tossed the phone on the bed and by the time he threw on some clothes it had dinged with another text.

_Derek: where do you want to go?_

Stiles had a feeling Derek was asking if he wanted to get away from this imposter life. If he was contemplating escape. Stiles dare not tell him far from it.

_Stiles: grocery shopping. dad has crap to eat here_

Stiles had rummaged through the cupboards earlier and found potato chips, canned soup, SPAM, candy bars, and at the very back that nasty-ass Japanese tea from Kira. It was horrifying that it had been in there for _seven years_. Stiles had to have a talk with his dad about cleaning out his pantry once in a while. Stiles had gagged at the sight of the box of tea bags, then put it aside to give Kira hell for making him drink that shit. He never got a chance to in his world, and he’d be damned if Kira foisted that vile liquid on him without hearing about it. That stuff was so gross there was no statute of limitations for bitching about it.

_Derek: need to pick up blazer from shop at end of shift. pick you up and take you over so you can drive honda home?_

_Stiles: ok_

Stiles put his phone down on the nightstand and suddenly found himself staring at his pillow rumpled up on the ugly-ass comforter. He looked around at his scattered clothes on the floor. His laptop on the desk. ShineGold beside his phone.

He thought about his dad’s advice.

Making a decision that very moment, Stiles grabbed up the duffel bag Derek brought his stuff over in and started packing all his things up.

*************************

When Derek pulled up to the house a little after five, Stiles threw the duffel bag over his right shoulder, tucked his laptop under his left arm, and went out the front door to meet him. Derek, who had been getting out of the car to go knock on the door, stopped when he saw Stiles heading his way. He frowned when he saw the duffel and computer.

Stiles wondered if the other him ever got used to Derek in his work uniform. Because he totally wasn’t yet. Fucker was delectable. Women in Beacon Hills probably _tried_ to get tickets.

There was no doubt in Stiles’ mind that Other Stiles was a smug son of a bitch about that, too. All ‘back off, bitches, he’s mine’. Stiles would be in his place. Just saying.

“Open the backseat?” Stiles asked when he reached the car, and Derek unlocked the back doors so Stiles could dump his stuff in the backseat. Then Stiles rounded the car and got in the passenger side.

Puzzled, Derek got back behind the wheel and looked over at Stiles. “Why did you bring your stuff?”

“You said I was driving the car home, right? I assume you meant our home.”

Derek stilled, clearly recalling his own words via text earlier. Then he looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean you had to. I really wasn’t thinking. You can come back here if you want.”

“And if I don’t want?”

Derek looked surprised. Then hopeful. “That’s a stupid question.”

“It is?”

Derek scoffed. “Yes. Of course I want you to come home.”

Stiles smiled. “Okay, so let’s give that a try, then. I can’t… I can’t make any promises, but… I’m homesick. I thought it was for Dad’s house, but that wasn’t it. Maybe I’m homesick for our place and I just don’t know it.”

Derek tried to hide a smile as he started the car.

“Besides,” Stiles buckled his seatbelt, “I never could figure out my computer’s stupid password, so I’ve been deprived of the internet for _days_. I think I’ve got the DTs.”

“It’s SSHale,” Derek said as he pulled out on to the road.

Stiles gaped at him. “Are you shitting me? I’ve been trying _everything_ and you knew it the whole time?”

“Sorry… I didn’t think about how you wouldn’t know your password.”

Which, yeah. To be fair, Stiles never thought to ask Derek what his password was, either.

“SSHale?” Stiles repeated. “Like you’re a ship?”

Derek chuckled. “Well, it was your initials and our last name, but you get a lot of mileage out of the ship thing. If I had a dollar for every time you asked me ‘permission to come aboard’…”

Stiles squawked and swatted Derek’s arm with the back of his hand. “Hey! What did I say about the dick talk?”

“Not to discuss yours. But that was about mine.”

Stiles scrunched down in the seat. “Jesus christ,” he grumbled, then he started quietly laughing. Derek joined in a second later.

It felt almost natural now. Stiles didn’t want to feel guilty about that.

*********************

The ride to the auto shop was relaxed, and when Derek picked up the Chevy with the Beacon Hills Police decals all over the sides, Stiles took the keys for the Honda and followed Derek back to their house.

Where he sat in the driveway for a moment, gripping the steering wheel and looking at the house apprehensively. He was worried he wouldn’t feel at home here.

But he was even more worried that he would.

When Derek stopped on his way to the front door and looked toward Stiles with the question eyebrows, Stiles girded himself and got out to gather his things from the backseat and go inside.

The inside looked just like the last time Stiles saw it. Furniture he didn’t recognize as his own and a floor plan he couldn’t walk in the dark without turning on any lights. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but hoping he might have an epiphany and gain access to all of the other Stiles’ memories, maybe. A guy could dream.

“We’ve got the stuff to make spaghetti, if that’s good with you,” Derek said as he dropped his keys in a bowl on a shelf of the nearby bookcase.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Stiles said, standing in the foyer with laptop and duffel in hand.

Derek looked over at him like he wanted to say something, then he just shut his mouth and headed for the bedroom.

Stiles went to the couch and started unpacking the duffel bag. ShineGold, his laptop, and the photo album he put on the coffee table, soon joined by his cell phone that he fished out of his pocket. His pillow he threw against the couch armrest. He grimaced and used a two-finger pincer grip to put the tea on the end table. Then he peeked in at the assortment of clothes left in the bag and carried it all to the laundry room. He was proud to at least know where it was, after his brief tour that first day.

By the time he came out of the laundry room, Derek was in the kitchen in black basketball shorts and a faded Disney t-shirt with the wolf pack from The Jungle Book on it.

Stiles couldn’t help but smile.

Derek saw it and tilted his head quizzically.

“Your shirt,” Stiles gestured at him. “From our honeymoon?”

“Yeah.” Derek kind of blushed.

“I saw the pictures.”

Derek turned to look at the photo album Stiles had left on the coffee table in the living room, then turned back to Stiles. “Did it help? I mean, did the pictures make you remember any of it?”

Stiles’ smile slipped. “No.” He could see how much that disappointed Derek. “They were nice pictures, though.”

“They’re better memories,” Derek muttered dejectedly.

An uncomfortable silence fell around them, and Stiles wanted no part of it. “So,” he turned toward the kitchen cabinets, “spaghetti?”

“Right.” Derek came forward to show him where everything was and get dinner started.

They fell into a rhythm that was strangely synced. Like maybe Stiles didn’t remember this, but this body had the muscle memory of cooking with Derek down to an art. Their kitchen choreography, it turned out, did not allow for a lot of personal space. The kitchen wasn’t necessarily small, they just seemed to be in a decaying orbit around each other. Before long, Derek’s hands were ghosting over Stiles. His arms, his back, his hands. 

Every time he crowded close to Stiles, Derek inhaled deeply. Stiles guessed that’s what his dad meant about Derek sniffing him a lot.

The scary thing was that Stiles didn’t mind. He found himself aiding and abetting the behavior. When Derek leaned in to stick his finger in the sauce, Stiles hip-checked him. Where he could have moved back because Derek was skin-to-skin close, he didn’t. He knew he was playing with fire, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

Once the food was ready and they’d served up portions onto two plates and taken a seat at the table, Stiles was feeling dangerously at ease. Like he might do something horrible. Like try to steal this Stiles’ life.

“So have you talked to Lydia?” Stiles asked. Mostly to remind himself that he didn’t belong here. He couldn’t get attached. He’d have to give all this back and return to his own life, and he didn’t want to mourn losing Derek. Which it was already too late for that, he knew he would, but he could at least keep it manageable. Remember Derek wasn’t really _his_.

“Not _yet_ ,” Derek answered evasively, suddenly refusing to meet Stiles’ eyes. He’d gone from relaxed to tense in no time flat. Stiles narrowed his eyes, perplexed.

“Are we fighting with Lydia or something?”

“No.”

“Then what’s going on? You’ve been weird every time I bring her up.” Stiles canted his head speculatively at Derek, wondering if this was about the major crush Stiles had on Lydia for so long. Did Derek feel _threatened_ by her? That was utter nonsense, of course, but maybe werewolves took that kind of thing more personally than humans did?

“We’re not on the outs with Lydia, it’s just…” Derek sighed. “I’ll talk to her.”

Stiles wanted to prod further, but Derek looked like he would rather chew ground glass.

A new topic was in order.

“So… I couldn’t help but notice I have a tattoo now.”

Derek kept his face downturned toward his plate, deliberately twirling pasta around his fork, but he visibly smiled.

“Tell me I wasn’t drunk when that happened.”

“You weren’t… though I don’t think Dad believes that to this day.”

“So what made me decide to get inked?” Stiles took a bite while awaiting Derek’s answer.

“You, uh… got that the morning after we first had sex.”

Stiles spit half-chewed spaghetti all over the table.

Derek laughed at him.

Stiles, coughing, took a drink to get the noodles out of his throat. When he could talk without choking on his food, he rasped, “Seriously? I felt the need to commemorate getting you in bed with permanent body art?”

“I thought a high-five would have sufficed, but you didn’t ask me before you did it.”

Stiles flipped Derek the middle finger then grabbed a napkin to clean up the mess he’d made. 

Derek shook his head, chuckling, then he gave Stiles a lop-sided smile. “I like it, though.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do… it’s basically like having ‘Property of Derek Hale’ branded on me.”

Derek shrugged but he did not deny it.

“So are there any other werewolves in Beacon Hill these days?” Stiles asked. “What’s the hunter situation?” When Derek looked at him, Stiles continued, “I started to go out for a walk the other day and freaked myself out because I have no clue what the deal is in this town right now.”

“There aren’t any resident werewolves. Besides me, that is. We get transients sometimes. Loners. Omegas. They don’t stick around, though. My presence is enough to keep them from trying to establish a territory here. Tradition keeps the packs out. This area has always been Hale territory, and _most_ packs honor territorial boundaries. Crazy all-alpha packs notwithstanding. 

“When the steady werewolf population moved on, so did the hunters. Really, I’m the only kind of policing force of the supernatural in Beacon Hills right now.”

“ _You’re_ a hunter?”

“In a sense,” Derek replied hesitantly, clearly uncomfortable with that word. “I don’t hunt down innocent werewolves, obviously. I just take care of any threats to public safety. I defend my home.” Derek took a bite of garlic toast, chewed, and swallowed. “It’s actually been relatively quiet for a couple of years now. We still get things – even dormant, the nemeton still stirs up the unnatural, like _fucking harpies_ – but not nearly like before.”

“All things considered, that really surprises me. There was always epic levels of shit going on around here.”

“It’s because there isn’t a werewolf presence anymore. Werewolves are magnets for that kind of stuff. Supernatural forces are drawn to us. So when they left, a lot of the trouble did, too.”

“So you don’t attract them?”

“One werewolf isn’t worth noticing. Without the pack, a wolf is nothing.”

Stiles didn’t like the way that sounded. Like without the pack, Derek was worthless. It was so… demeaning. Like Derek didn’t have anything to offer if he didn’t have a fucking entourage. That was so much bullshit.

Derek didn’t _sound_ bothered by being the last werewolf in Beacon Hills, but maybe he’d just gotten good over the years at hiding it.

“Does that… do you miss having a pack?”

Derek looked oddly at him. “I have a pack.”

“But… you just said…”

“You’re my mate. That’s my pack. You and Dad. Do I miss the group dynamics of a big werewolf pack? Yeah, sometimes. But I don’t need it to be happy. Not as long as I have you.”

But he really kind of didn’t, because Stiles wasn’t supposed to be here.

He looked down at his food, appetite waning.

It was obvious that Derek noticed the mood at the table had shifted, but mercifully he didn’t push it. He and Stiles finished their meal quietly, pretending they weren’t both stealing looks across the table at the other.


	7. Chapter 7

They settled into a routine, and it was comfortable. _Too_ comfortable. 

It was like they were married.

Of course, Stiles was sleeping on the couch instead of in Derek’s bed. Derek didn’t like that, but Stiles just couldn’t sleep with another man’s husband. Even if that other man was _himself_. And he didn’t trust himself to just sleep in the bed with Derek without crossing any lines.

Because Derek Hale? Turned out he was a fucking amazing husband. Stiles was starting to get what being a werewolf’s mate meant. It meant attentiveness. Investment. Affection.

Which, that last one, Stiles tried to keep that one out of rotation. Not because he didn’t want to. But because he wanted to too much. He couldn’t open the door to anything remotely intimate, because he wouldn’t be able to stop. Derek scenting him was torture enough, and that was just him smelling Stiles’ neck (although Derek was less aggressive about it now that Stiles was living in the house again).

Before Stiles knew it, he’d been in this strange alternate universe for a week. And he’d gotten into the groove of it. He got his stitches removed, so he looked _less_ like Frankenstein’s monster (though there would definitely be a scar). The last couple of days, because he was bored and wanted to get out of the house, he fixed a couple of lunches and took them to the station for his dad and Derek. Only to find out that was pretty typical of the other Stiles, because he was welcomed by everyone like it was business as usual and even had to explain why he hadn’t been around the last few days. The stitches and fading bruises on his face were a perfect alibi.

One day he noticed a lot of dirty clothes piling up around the house, so he did laundry. The fact they were low on milk and bread came to his attention the next day, so he went grocery shopping. While he was there, he picked up the ingredients to make chicken pot pie and had it made for dinner by the time Derek got home.

Derek never asked him to do any of the housework, but Stiles was there and he was bored and Derek _was_ out working all day. It was actually kind of relaxing. And the more he did it, the more the house started to feel like his. Which might not actually be a good thing, but damnit, he wanted this little piece for himself. If he couldn’t have the husband that came with it, at least give him a sliver of home.

Stiles was standing at the sliding glass door in the dining area, looking shrewdly at the grass in the back yard and thinking it could stand to be mowed, when the front door banged open without warning.

Stiles startled and turned to see Derek, _wolfed out_ and khaki uniform shirt filthy with dark dirt, storm into the house, go straight to the bedroom, and slam the door so hard he heard wood splintering.

Stiles stood stock-still a moment, stunned.

There was no telling how long he might have stood there gawking at the open front door were it not for his cell phone on the end table next to the couch starting to ring.

It was his father.

“Dad?”

“Stiles, is Derek there?” John asked, urgency and concern in his voice.

“Yeah, he got home like six seconds ago. Just barged in here looking scary as _fuck_.”

There was a resigned sigh on the other end.

“What the hell happened? He looked like he’d rolled in a fireplace.”

John paused, like his heart was caught in his throat, then he said, “There… we got called out to a house fire. The mom and her three-year-old son didn’t make it out.”

“Shit…” Stiles breathed. Then it really sank in. “ _Shit_.”

“He shouldn’t have even gone in there, but I couldn’t stop him. He almost got into a brawl with a fireman, but there… there was nothing anyone could have done. He was losing it. I told him to go home.” John sounded weary. “I wanted to make sure he made it home. And I wanted you to know what’s wrong with him.”

“Yeah… sure… that’s… thanks, Dad.”

“Stiles, listen… I know things are still… just take care of him, okay?”

“I will,” Stiles croaked. He wasn’t sure _how_ , but he would.

When he hung up with his dad, Stiles went to the front door and closed it. There was a divot in the entryway wall where the knob had been slammed too hard against it. Stiles walked across the living room over to the bedroom door.

He took a steadying breath. He had to shoulder the door open where Derek had wedged it into the frame with the force of slamming it shut, but eventually it gave and he stepped into the room he had basically been avoiding.

Derek’s uniform was strewn across the floor in tatters, clearly ripped from Derek’s body by claws. The sooty clothes had filled the room with the smell of fire and smoke that even Stiles, with his puny human nose, could smell. It had to be suffocating for a werewolf.

Derek was curled naked in bed, his back to the door. Stiles could see him shaking. When he took a few steps closer, he could hear Derek growling. A low, constant sound of pent-up rage. If Stiles had any sense of self-preservation, he would have backed away at the deep rumble escaping from Derek’s throat.

“Derek?” Stiles called softly.

Derek flinched. The growling got louder. Stiles could tell it wasn’t directed at him, though. It was just Derek hurt and in self-defense mode.

Stiles looked down at the clothes reeking of smoke and quickly snatched them all up. He had to get them away from Derek. Out of the bedroom. Out of the house. He threw them in the kitchen trashcan, then he pulled the trash bag out and set it outside the front door.

He slipped back into the bedroom with care and looked toward the bed. Derek was unmoved, still a hard curled shape on the bed, trembling and growling. It reminded Stiles of the dogs Scott would take to the clinic, baring their teeth and growling fiercely, but not because they were dangerous. Because they were in pain. Because they were hurt and they couldn’t imagine anything else that happened to them could ever make it hurt less. 

Stiles padded closer to the bed until he could see the profile of Derek’s face. The enlarged brows and elongated canines and additional hair. He was clutching the edge of the mattress with one hand, claws buried in the padding.

Ever so careful, Stiles eased onto one knee on the bed behind Derek. “Derek?”

Derek sucked in a breath. His fingers flexed. The wolf-face receded, but his claws and fangs remained. His eyes snapped open and were glowing bright blue.

Stiles dared to lay his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “What can I do?”

Suddenly, Derek turned and lunged at him. It spoke volumes of Stiles’ trust that he didn’t scramble back at the sudden movement.

Derek grabbed Stiles, hauled him down into the bed, and fucking clung to him. He pulled Stiles tight against him, pressed their bodies together _hard_ , and buried his nose in Stiles’ neck. Breathed him in to overpower the smell of fire with the scent of mate. He was still shaking, muscles locked and jerking beyond his control. It made Stiles’ neck and back hurt just watching. Stiles reached out and curled his hands around Derek’s back to try and ease the ache.

Derek shuddered and the growl faltered at his touch.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles whispered. He couldn’t say it was okay. They both knew it wasn’t.

“They died,” Derek said in a hoarse voice. Like he had to say it aloud. Had to make it real.

“I know.” Stiles wrapped his arms more completely around Derek.

Derek burrowed closer to Stiles. Any closer and Stiles would have to rearrange some internal organs. But he let Derek hold him as tightly as he needed to. All day and night if that’s what Derek needed.

*****************

Stiles wasn’t surprised to open the front door the next morning to find his father standing on his doorstep. Sheriff Stilinski was dressed for work, but his face was all the father and not the sheriff.

“How’s he doing?” he asked.

Stiles scrubbed a hand through his hair and yawned. “It was a rough night.” Stiles never knew before that Derek had nightmares, too. He did after last night. Stiles spent the whole night either getting the stuffing hugged out of him or trying to shake Derek awake from a nightmare. Their mattress was in tatters. Stiles had a few scratches he would have to hide, because Derek hadn’t known he was doing it.

Stiles stepped aside and invited his father in with a wave.

John shook his head. “I don’t want to intrude. I just wanted to see how he was. And to make sure you tell him he’s not coming in today.” 

Yeah, no way in hell that was happening.

“Thanks.” Stiles rubbed at one eye sleepily.

“You okay?”

Stiles shook his head. If Derek wasn’t okay, he wasn’t okay.

John seemed to get that. He gave a somber nod, then said, “I’ve got to get going. Call if you need anything.”

After bidding his father goodbye, Stiles went to the kitchen to make coffee. When he was ready, he poured a cup, grabbed a bagel off the counter, and headed back toward the bedroom.

Only Derek wasn’t in the bed.

The master bathroom door was wide open and the shower was running.

Stiles walked over to set the coffee and bagel on Derek’s nightstand when the water shut off and the curtain whipped back. Stiles made a fleeting moment of eye contact with naked Derek Hale before he turned hastily away. “Sorry… just brought you some coffee and something to eat.” Stiles felt a flush creeping up his neck into his ears. “I’ll just…”

He moved to leave, but suddenly a wet hand was clamped around his wrist. He flinched and couldn’t help but look. Derek was standing in front of Stiles, naked and dripping like he didn’t even realize he was wet without a scrap of clothing on. He hadn’t even grabbed a fucking towel.

Stiles sure as hell noticed though. He’d been able to block out the excess of naked Derek skin last night because Derek needed him. There was nothing sexual about the broken sounds Derek had made in his nightmares or the way he held on to Stiles like he would lose his mind if he lost his grip. Then it didn’t matter.

But Stiles couldn’t just _be okay_ with Derek naked as a matter of course. He had a wall to maintain, a barrier between the other life he knew was rightly his and this one he wanted. Derek in the buff would tear it all down.

Stiles exerted every ounce of self-control he had to make sure he looked _nowhere_ but right into Derek’s face.

Derek was looking at him intently. His eyes were back to normal, there were no claws at Stiles’ wrist, but there was something more wolf than man in the way Derek studied Stiles. It was disarming. It felt like the forest at night on a full moon, running with wolves.

For a moment, Stiles kind of felt like his heart stopped.

Whatever was going on with Derek stopped and he blinked and let go of Stiles’ wrist. “Sorry.” He looked down at the coffee like it was the first time he’d ever seen coffee before. “Thanks,” he muttered, though he made no move to take it.

“Can I… maybe get you a towel?” Stiles offered in a strained voice.

Derek growled, went back to the bathroom, then he emerged again with a towel wrapped around his hips.

Stiles sent up a thanks for the sake of his sanity.

“You don’t have to go in to work today. My dad stopped by.”

Derek nodded absently.

“Are you… is there anything else I can do?”

“You’ve done enough,” Derek snarled.

Stiles blinked, taken aback by the venom in his voice.

Derek clearly heard it, too. He closed his eyes and winced. “That’s not… what I meant was…”

“You’re welcome. And it’s okay.”

They stood in awkward silence a moment, then Derek was in motion, digging through the dresser for clothes. He pulled out underwear, track pants, and a t-shirt. To Stiles, he said, “I need to get out of a while. Go for a run.”

“Okay.” Stiles left the bedroom so he could dress in privacy. He was in the kitchen pouring himself some coffee when Derek came out, tennis shoes laced up and car keys in hand. Stiles knew he’d go to the preserve. This wasn’t a human run.

“Have a good time,” Stiles offered kindly.

Derek paused a moment, torn between Stiles and the door.

Stiles shooed him toward the door with his free hand.

Before Stiles could mount a protest, Derek marched up to Stiles, slipped a hand behind his neck, and kissed him. Just a press of mouths, chaste and tame, but Stiles felt like his knees might buckle.

Derek took a step back and looked at him carefully. “I’ll be back.”

Stiles couldn’t speak, so he nodded and set his coffee down before he spilled it.

When Derek closed the front door behind him, Stiles braced himself against the island and tried to get his racing heart under control. “Oh, _fuck_.”

He’d enjoyed that just as much as he feared he would.

******************

Stiles could swear his heart started beating faster the second he heard a key in the front door lock. He was all the way in the kitchen making dinner, but he’d swear that for that minute he had werewolf hearing, because the tumblers turned over loud enough to echo in the entire house. 

It was nearly six o’clock. Derek had been gone all day. Stiles was actually glad for it, because he needed some time to get his act together.

But when he heard Derek come in the front door, he knew that for all the time he’d had to himself today, it hadn’t been enough. Derek was home and Stiles went on hyper-alert. He might fly apart at any moment.

His hands froze in the process of making a sandwich as Derek came around the corner and stopped at the sight of him.

They both acted like the presence of the other was surprising.

His nerves aside, Stiles gave Derek an assessing look. His hair was an unkempt wreck and Stiles could swear he smelled Derek’s clothes from the kitchen entryway, but he didn’t look as tightly-wound as he had that morning. Not relaxed or peaceful. More like… decompressed. He’d run the edge off whatever had been eating at him.

“Hey,” Stiles cleared his throat.

“Hi.”

Stiles resumed his meal preparation, stacking a piece of lettuce atop his turkey and cheese sandwich. “I didn’t know when you’d be back, so whatever you can rustle up for dinner is fair game.”

Derek nodded and took a tentative step into the kitchen. Still standing at the center island, Stiles took a bite of his sandwich, watching Derek out of the corner of his eye. Which was only fair… Derek was totally watching him, too. 

Stiles hastily got out of the way, plate in hand, as Derek moved toward the fridge. Derek fetched a bottle of water then moved to stand at the side of the island to Stiles’ left. There they both just watched the other, never going as far as to meet the other’s eyes.

It was the most uncomfortable, awkward moment of Stiles’ life, and he had some real contenders.

“Feeling better?” Stiles finally asked to break the silence.

“Yeah,” Derek twisted the water bottle around the Formica but didn’t drink from it. “How was your day?”

“All right. I Skyped with Scott and Kira.”

Derek glanced over at the laptop on the island to Stiles’ right. “Did they have any leads on the…”

“No.” But Stiles had been really, really hoping they would. He’d been kind of desperately hoping, actually. Because after what happened that morning… Stiles needed an out. _Now_. He was getting into this way too deep. He was going to end up doing something he would regret.

Not because he would _regret_ it – in fact, he was pretty sure it would be the best thing he’d ever experienced in his life – but because he didn’t want to ruin Other Stiles’ life. Other Stiles had it _good_. He’d worked hard to get this life with Derek, and he deserved all of it. He certainly didn’t deserve to have some imposter like Stiles waltz in and take it.

And he didn’t want to have Derek for his own sake. He didn’t want to touch him and taste him and love him, just to have him ripped away when they finally got Stiles back where he belonged.

“Listen, Stiles…” Derek stammered. “About this morning…”

“It’s fine. Really. It… happened. Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.”

That was not the right thing to say. Derek’s chin came up and he looked hard at Stiles. “It _is_ a big deal. I miss my _husband_.”

Stiles cringed. “Trust me, I know you do. I wish I could…” He wished he could be him. Or pretend. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to either version of Stiles. “I want to fix this as much as you do.”

“I understand that you don’t remember how we got here,” Derek said sullenly, “but I don’t get why you won’t at least try with me now. Do you even want me?”

Oh, hell. “I do. I do _a lot_. And that’s the problem.”

“What if we can never get your memories back? Will you just… will you leave me?”

Stiles’ heart dropped. “No! No… I’d never…” He didn’t think he was physically capable. But Derek had a point… if they never found a way to send him home, how long would he keep Derek at arm’s length? At what point could he say he’d done all he could and let this be his? He didn’t know. But he knew leaving Derek wasn’t an option. “I could never do that, Derek.”

“Then _what do you want from me_ , Stiles?” he asked in frustration. Derek sounded stripped bare, emotionally raw. This was the opposite of what Stiles wanted.

“I want to not hurt you,” Stiles answered.

“Well, you’re sucking at it.”

Stiles drew back his shoulders and looked Derek square in the eye. “I’m trying to do the right thing! But I don’t even know what that is. The right thing for whom? You? Me? Your Stiles? And if the same thing isn’t the right thing for all of them, well, then who the fuck do I put first? No matter what I do, someone gets hurt!”

Derek was tense, jaw clenched and hands closed into fists so tight his knuckles were white. Stiles was standing stiffly a pace back from the island, like he might need room to… _something_.

It was too intense, and Stiles broke first. “My turn,” he announced, turning and walking into the living room.

“Your what?” Derek asked, following Stiles.

“My turn to get out of here.” Stiles fished the Honda keys out of the bowl, pocketed his cell phone, and found his shoes.

When he looked up, Derek was standing in the space between the living room and kitchen, watching Stiles and looking like he was about to throw up. Shit, Derek thought Stiles was _walking out_.

“Hey, hey… Derek. Derek!”

Derek blinked at him, shell-shocked and sick to his stomach and taken out at the knees.

“I’m coming back,” Stiles promised.

Derek swallowed.

“I. Am. Coming. Back,” Stiles repeated. He looked closely at Derek. “Do you believe me?”

Faintly, Derek nodded.

“Good… because that’s a promise. I’ll be back.”

Then he walked out the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Stiles drove to the preserve, got out of the car, and screamed.

Squirrels scurried up trees and birds took flight and Stiles just yelled himself hoarse.

It didn’t give him any answers, but it made him feel better.

When he’d done all the screaming his throat could take, he went to a tree and sat down at the base. He curled his hands over the back of his head, face buried in his elbows, and gulped for air. He blinked hard against the tears swimming in his eyes and sniffled miserably.

He was trying so hard to save Derek’s marriage with the other Stiles, but fuck if it didn’t feel like it was _his_ marriage that was stressed to the breaking point.

“It’s not _fair_ ,” Stiles said aloud. He banged his head back against the trunk of the tree. “ _It’s not fucking fair_!” He closed his eyes and swiped angrily at the tears that tracked down his cheeks. “Other Stiles, wherever you are, I _hate_ you.” He wished he could not give a shit about the guy who was supposed to be here. If he didn’t, he could just be with Derek. It would be so easy.

Falling for Derek would be the easiest thing he’d ever done.

“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Stiles lamented to the woods.

He wished his mom had still been alive in this universe. He’d give anything to talk to her. Somehow, he knew she would know the right thing to do.

Missing his mom tipped him over the edge, and he started to cry. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. Everything he’d been dealing with lined up to have their share of his sob-fest, and Stiles just broke down and let them have him.

By the time the tears stopped and he was down to hiccups, he felt like he’d cried for himself and Derek and Other Stiles and his mom and Nibbles the Hamster who died when he was five. It was getting dark out, and the air had taken on a cool nip.

He still didn’t have the answers.

But he _did_ want to go home.

Stiles stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. He swiped at the snot under his nose and rubbed at his scratchy eyes. Then he went back to the Honda he didn’t think was all that lame anymore and drove home.

He found Derek in the garage/weight room. He was straddling the weight bench, glaring up at a fifty-pound dumbbell imbedded in the far wall. It had torn clear through the drywall and punched out some of the bricks beyond.

“Hey,” Stiles offered shakily. He knew he looked and sounded like he’d been crying, but he honestly didn’t care.

“I broke the wall,” Derek responded, not turning to look at him yet.

“I can see that. Did you at least get the fly?”

Derek huffed and turned around to face Stiles.

He looked wrecked, but he also looked so good.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said lowly.

Derek got to his feet and stood there, hands at his sides. Anyone else would have seen stonewall Hale, the definition of unapproachable made into physical form. 

Stiles saw invitation.

He crossed the room and slipped his arms around Derek in a hug. It felt so fucking good. Like _home_. So why couldn’t it be? Why couldn’t he have this?

Derek folded his arms around Stiles and held him close.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said again. Sorry for a lot. For so much. But especially for fighting with his husband. He might not have the right to call Derek that, but for one minute he wasn’t going to second-guess his gut. He should be allowed that much.

“Me too,” Derek murmured into his neck.

They stood like that for a long time, neither wanting to break away.

“So, was that our first fight?” Stiles asked, voice muffled by Derek’s shoulder.

“Nah,” Derek replied, rubbing his hand up and down the length of Stiles’ back. “We got into a pretty heated argument about cake icing once.”

Stiles barked out a laugh. “Cake icing?”

“Mmmm… we couldn’t agree what flavor went best with…” Derek trailed off.

“Went best with what?” Stiles prodded.

“I can’t tell you, you said I’m not allowed to talk about your penis anymore.”

Stiles guffawed and poked Derek in the side with one knuckle. “You prick.”

“Now who’s the one obsessed with dicks?”

Stiles snorted and relaxed against Derek. Derek chuckled and hugged Stiles closer.

Logically Stiles knew the hug had to come to an end, but he would have been fine if it didn’t. When Derek pulled back, Stiles dropped his arms and straightened to meet his gaze. Derek looked back him, his expression warm and open.

No… the problem wasn’t that he _could_ love Derek.

The problem was he _did_ love Derek.

“It’s never been that I don’t want you, you know,” Stiles confessed, because Derek deserved that much. “I just don’t know how I can have you without screwing everything up.”

Derek looked pained by that, and yet relieved, too. He offered a heartsick half-smile. “Maybe you’re just thinking too hard.”

“Or that.”

They went back into the house and got ready for bed, a quiet truce declared between them. Stiles headed back to his couch. As he was sorting out his blanket and pillow, he felt eyes on him and turned to see Derek standing in the open bedroom door watching him. He was in boxer-briefs and nothing else. Stiles got an eyeful of abs and pecs and so much beautiful _skin_.

It probably wasn’t an accident.

Derek Tempter Hale.

“Sleep with me?” Derek asked. And it really did sound like he meant just sleep. That he merely wanted to be next to Stiles.

Stiles winced. “I can’t,” was what he said. ‘I can’t have you,’ was what he thought. 

And he had never resented any fact more than that one.

*********************

Things were better after that. Stiles wouldn’t say normal – because he was in an alternate universe in the future where he was married to Derek Hale, so what was normal? – but they were definitely better.

At least Derek knew Stiles had the hots for him. And Stiles knew that Derek knew. There was a lot of knowing of things going on, and it stopped them from having another fight about it.

But what it didn’t stop was the flirting.

Stiles wasn’t even sure if that was the right word, but now that Derek knew he wasn’t being rejected on the basis of lack of interest, he seemed to be intent on seeing just how close Stiles would let him get. And Stiles, masochist that he clearly was, _liked_ it. 

Liked it too much, truth be told, but _enjoying_ it wasn’t wrong, right? Other Stiles wouldn’t hold _that_ against him, would he? As long as he didn’t _do_ anything about it?

Then again, this had only been going on two days, and already Stiles felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin… or climb Derek. That was probably a bad sign.

But it was so hard to care when Derek walked into the kitchen while Stiles was leaning over the island reading ShineGold and traced his hand down the length of Stiles’ back. Stiles barely stopped himself from arching into the touch. He got now why cats liked that shit so much.

“I emailed Lydia this morning,” Derek said as he dropped his hand off Stiles’ back and went over to the counter to grab a banana. There was that hint of an edge in his voice whenever he mentioned Lydia that Stiles still didn’t get, but for the moment he let it slide.

“Thank you.” Kira and Scott were giving him big goose eggs. The internet had failed him miserably. One could only do so much laundry, so Stiles had a lot of free hours when Derek was at work to research online. But when he searched ‘alternate universe’ or ‘alternate reality’, all he got was a lot of Star Trek and Dr. Who and weird-ass fanfiction that was less than useless to him.

He was counting on Lydia. 

“Did you tell her ‘help me, Lydia Martin, you’re my only hope’?”

Derek froze right before taking a bite. “No… was I supposed to?”

Stiles dismissed the matter with a wave and turned back to the book. Mostly so he didn’t have to watch Derek eat a phallic-shaped piece of fruit.

So much for getting his head out of the gutter, though, because Derek came up behind Stiles and just fucking _pressed_ into him as he leaned down to look over Stiles’ shoulder. Derek’s body heat draped over Stiles’ right side, buttock to back to shoulder, and fried several of Stiles’ synapses in the process.

“Ahem,” Stiles pointedly cleared his throat.

“Just looking to see where you’re at.”

“You so are not, liarwolf. Back off me, Hale,” Stiles nudged Derek with his shoulder to demand some breathing room.

Derek chuckled and took a half-step back. “Still think Sik’s the bad guy?”

“Gender aside, _yes_! Dude, she’s awful! Her whole species is.” Stiles put his bookmark in place, put down the book, and turned to eye Derek. “In fact, I’m rethinking this whole marriage now.”

Derek snorted and bit off another piece of banana.

“So can I ask you something?”

He was rewarded with a ‘go ahead’ gesture as Derek moved back to lean a hip against the counter.

“What’s he like? Your Stiles, I mean.”

Derek stopped chewing a moment, frowning. He looked constipated. “Why are you so sure you’re two different people?”

Yeah… Derek did always push the ‘lost memories’ angle, while Stiles was firmly in the ‘alternate universe’ camp.

“Instinct? I’m never going to have it this good.” He gestured first at Derek, then around to encompass the house in general (and by extension this _life_ ). “I _know_ that. It’s just not something in the cards for me.” He wasn’t being dramatic, just honest. Stiles was not that lucky.

But Derek looked troubled. “Well… he’s just like you. Even that,” he gestured at Stiles. “You say things like that, and I think back to when you were eighteen when you would have said the same thing. When we were both… not in a good place.”

That comparison made Stiles acutely uncomfortable, though he didn’t really want to analyze why.

“Let me ask you… has anyone told you anything about your childhood or your family that doesn’t fit with your memories up to the point when you were seventeen?”

Stiles didn’t like where this was going. “No.”

“Then why can’t it just be that you lost your memories?”

Danger, Will Robinson. Danger! “Because it’s not.”

Derek lifted one eyebrow. “Then why do you have his scars? If you switched out with ‘my Stiles’, why would _you_ have them?”

“It’s… it’s like a Quantum Leap thing! My consciousness jumped in here, not my body. I’m me on the inside and him on the outside.” Even though they were both Stiles inside and outside, but that got confusing.

“I think you’re reaching.” Derek tossed the banana peel in the trash. “I just can’t figure out _why_.”

Because if Stiles let himself believe that Derek was right, and then it turned out he _wasn’t_ , Stiles would lose so much. Instead of losing a dream, he’d lose a husband. Clinging to the alternate world theory was pure self-defense on Stiles’ part.

“If you’re so sure,” Derek challenged, “why do you wear ‘his’ ring?”

Stiles looked down guiltily at the wedding ring on his left hand. “Well, I… uh… yeah, I don’t really have a good answer for that.”

They were both quiet for a moment before Derek ventured, “I get it, you know.”

“You do?”

Derek nodded. “I was there. I remember how much that nogitsune screwed you up.”

Stiles fidgeted. He wanted to deny that, to say it wasn’t about _that_ , but even he wouldn’t believe that lie. Yes, he was miles of scar tissue psychologically. Wouldn’t anyone be if they’d gone through the hell Stiles had?

“But I was a mess back then, too. It was something we got through together.” He looked pensive, like he was just now seeing the problem in a new light. “I wish I had enough vacation days to go on a road trip with you.”

Yeah, Stiles did, too. That sounded nice. He wanted to live the pictures in the album. And selfishly, he wanted some memories with Derek that were just _his_.

“But I’m trying to save them up, so that’s not happening right now.” That distracted look on his face again.

“Derek?”

“Let me think about it for a while. I’m sure I can come up with something.” Then he visibly shook himself. “We’re supposed to be at Dad’s house in half an hour, right?”

It was a blatant deflection, not even skillful… then Stiles looked at the clock and realized he was right. Derek and John both had the same day off, and they’d arranged to get the family together for dinner and a movie.

But Derek could be both conniving and right at the same time.

********************

“Is Derek okay?”

Stiles looked over at his father beside him on the couch, then followed his eyes to Derek in the kitchen talking on his cell phone with his back to them. He’d missed probably half the movie because he had one call or another he had to make.

“We had a… kind of a weird conversation before we left the house.” And ever since, Derek had gone quiet. He’d been off in his own head during dinner. Though honestly, Stiles had been pretty preoccupied with their discussion, too. Derek had said some things that made Stiles think.

“Dad, what do you think is wrong with me?”

“Oh, where to start…”

Stiles threw a handful of popcorn at his face. John chuckled and picked it off his shirt front to pop into his mouth.

“I’m serious.”

John looked searchingly over at his son.

“What do you think my problem is? What is _this_?” Stiles made a gesture at his person.

The sheriff pursed his lips. “Amnesia?”

“Amnesia.”

“Or something like it. Because it’s not like there is one fixed point where you can’t remember anything before or after, which is what I always understood amnesia was. It’s just a seven-year gap. So I don’t know if that’s _technically_ amnesia, but… if I had to call it _something_ , then yeah, amnesia.”

“So you think it’s a memory thing.”

“What else would it be?”

Stiles scowled down at the popcorn bowl on his lap.

“Son? What is it?” John put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder.

“So, _hypothetically_ …”

“Oh boy.”

“What?” Stiles asked indignantly. “I haven’t even asked it yet!”

“I raised you, kid. I know what to expect when you pose a hypothetical.”

Stiles gave his father an insulted look, then he forged on. “ _Hypothetically_ … if you had a son…”

John put his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. “Wait, wait… let me imagine that. Hmmm… okay, go ahead.”

Stiles tried not to smirk. “And he got sucked into an alternate universe, and he had a spouse there… would you… would you want him to go with it? I mean, like… would him _doing anything_ with said alternate reality spouse count as anyone being unfaithful, do you think?”

John opened his eyes and dropped his hands into his lap to look over at Stiles. He wasn’t playing anymore. “Is that what you and Derek talked about?”

“More or less.”

For a moment, his father gave that some thought. “So I take it you think you’re some sort of Other Dimension Stiles?” By his tone, Stiles could tell his father didn’t agree with that theory, but at least he was playing Devil’s Advocate for the sake of the conversation. Stiles nodded. “And you… you’re worried because Other Dimension Stiles maybe has a thing for This Dimension Derek?” Again, a nod. John sat back with an intrigued, “Huh.”

“You think it’s dumb,” Stiles mumbled.

“No, I don’t. I don’t think it’s dumb at all. I just think it flies in the face of Occam’s razor to go with alternate anybody or dimension this and that. But,” John held up his hands in deference, “for the sake of argument, let’s say it is. Would I want my son, who has traveled to an alternate universe, to embrace having a husband when he got there?” John thought about it a moment. “Yes, I would.”

“You would?” Stiles asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

John nodded. “You want to know why? Because I can’t imagine any reality where I didn’t love you and didn’t want you to be happy. Does Other Dimension John love you?”

“Definitely.”

“I’m sure he and I agree, then. Don’t deny yourself something that can make you happy. Life’s too short.”

Claudia Stilinski always seemed to haunt that phrase whenever John or Stiles used it.

Stiles picked at a piece of popcorn distractedly.

“What if the situation was reversed?” John threw the scenario back his way. “Just _hypothetically_ , if you were the one married to Derek and for some reason another Stiles was suddenly living your life… would you resent him for being with Derek?”

“I… I don’t know.” Hate himself for having a chance to be with Derek Hale and taking it? He didn’t _think_ he’d resent it. At the very least, he would _understand_ it. Hell, if the Stiles that took his place had the kind of luck he did, he might grant the poor bastard a ‘get out of jail free’ card.

Because Stiles didn’t hate himself. He didn’t think he _deserved_ the shit life threw at him. It was just what he got and he had to make the best of it.

John asked, “Would you be mad at Derek if he wanted to be with him? I mean, another you?”

“No.” That one he felt sure of. Because bottom-line, Derek was loyal to his husband. And Derek was certain Stiles _was_ his Stiles. There wasn’t a question of fidelity in Derek’s mind. 

And Stiles would not be mad at Derek for loving him.

Which really brought it down to the Stiles who was supposed to be here. What would _he_ think?

“What do you think? Would your son hate me if I…” Stiles glanced toward the kitchen where Derek was still on the phone.

“You _are_ my son. And I never think it’s wrong for you to love your husband.”

Stiles had no idea how the movie ended, because he was too wrapped up in his own head. The whirlwind of what ifs and what nows.


	9. Chapter 9

“We’re going to kill them, Stiles…”

Metallic teeth. Silver bite.

Everyone sitting at a round table. Scott and Allison and Kira and Lydia and Malia and Isaac and Derek. Dressed like they were attending an awards ceremony. Hands perfectly folded atop the table. Staring straight ahead. Expressions empty.

“We’re going to kill them _all_.” 

Bandages. No eyes. Wrapped hands.

“No,” Stiles whimpers, trying to backpedal out of the room. Something holding him in place. A force-field making him watch.

Slowly, in union, everyone at the table turning to look at Stiles.

“We’re going to kill them…”

Gasoline and smoke. Seared skin and leather.

Mouths at the table opening to speak. Blood spilling out instead of words. 

“No, no, _no_!” Stiles tries to turn. Finds himself back at the start. Table in front of him, his friends bleeding out. A freak in a bomber jacket stalking closer.

“You won’t kill them!” Stiles screaming hysterically.

His friends slumping over. Skin parting at necks and wrists and bellies. Blood. So much blood.

“You’re right, Stiles. _I_ won’t kill them. _You will_.”

Stiles looks down. A bloody knife in his hand. Blood on his clothes. Soaked in it. Sticky with it. Seeping into his soul.

“ _No_!”

Tries to drop the knife. And can’t.

Look up. His friends’ bodies, collapsed over the table in a pattern like flower petals. A bloody rose. Yards of bandages laid over the corpses. A demon with Stiles’ face leering at him.

Stiles flings himself against the barrier trapping him.

And fell off the couch with a thump.

Stiles blinked up at the ceiling from flat on his back, disoriented and panicked. His lungs were gasping for air. His heart was pounding against his ribs. His body was shaking. Blood. He was covered in it.

Stiles scrambled up off the floor and stumbled into the hallway bathroom.

He hit the lights and stared wide-eyed at his reflection. There wasn’t any blood on him. No blood.

But he could _feel_ it. Hot on his hands. Cold in his veins.

“Stiles?” Derek was suddenly in the doorway, looking sleep-mussed and startled.

“Don’t!” Stiles staggered back frantically. “I’ll hurt you!” He had a knife. He couldn’t see it, but he’d had it just a second ago. He might hurt someone. Could. Would. 

_Had_.

Derek gaped, speechless at first. Then he cursed under his breath. “ _Shit_ … Stiles…” he stepped forward, hand outstretched.

“No!” Stiles twisted, tried to escape, but there was nowhere to go. No way out.

Arms came around him from behind, and Stiles bucked. “No, don’t! Let me out! _Let me out_!” He heard the answering refrain in his head.

_Let. Me. In._

Words became screams that turned into sobs. He struggled to break free, but Derek’s arms were too strong. No matter how much Stiles fought, Derek held on to him. Held Stiles to his chest and said gently, “Shh... it’s okay. It was just a nightmare. You’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe, Stiles.”

Stiles felt his knees give out and braced for the crash. Derek held him tighter so he didn’t fall.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Stiles rambled, not even sure when he’d stopped crying and started apologizing.

“You didn’t do anything. You don’t have to be sorry. It wasn’t you,” Derek soothed behind him.

Stiles struggled again in Derek’s hold. Only this time not to escape. He whimpered until Derek loosened his grip a little, and Stiles turned to face Derek and wrapped his arms around Derek’s neck.

Derek hugged him closer. “God, Stiles… you haven’t had one of these in _years_.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please stop saying that,” Derek pleaded.

Stiles clutched Derek tighter. “I’m sorry.”

Derek sighed and tucked his face against Stiles’ neck.

It was a while before Stiles got his breathing under control. Slowly, the fog of the nightmare dissipated and he realized what had happened. He loosened his death-grip on Derek and Derek finally let him go.

Stiles moved a pace away and wiped at his face. “Sorry about that,” he said, embarrassed.

“Seriously, Stiles, _stop saying that_.” Derek went as if to reach for him again, then stopped and asked instead, “Can I get you something to drink?”

Stiles nodded mutely, then let himself be led back to the couch, where Derek had him sit down before he disappeared into the kitchen.

He was back soon with a mug of hot cocoa he handed to Stiles.

“Thanks.” Stiles took a swallow. 

Derek sat down next to him and gave a shaky sigh. 

No one seemed to know what to say.

“You used to get those on our road trip,” Derek finally said, breaking the oppressive silence of the house with a cautious voice. “In the beginning.”

That didn’t surprise Stiles. If he was a betting man, he’d wager that he had been having them for a long time before that, too. They’d been a regular thing since the nogitsune for him, in his reality. At least he’d trained himself not to scream himself awake anymore. His dad, at least, got some sleep. John never had to know how bad it still was.

But of course Derek knew. He’d shared a motel room with Stiles. No way to hide it there.

Stiles hummed an acknowledgement and took another sip of cocoa. Honestly, he was surprised he’d been here as long as he had without having one.

“Want to talk about it?” Derek offered.

“Did I ever?” Stiles asked doubtfully.

Derek made a stricken but resigned face. “No. I usually asked, but you never… you never let me in. Not about that.”

Stiles’ gut clenched. “Don’t… don’t use that phrase. Not if we’re talking about _that_.”

“What phrase?”

Stiles swallowed hard. “ _Let me in_.” Stiles kept his eyes averted as he rubbed his thumb over the rim of the mug, his nail catching on a chip. “That’s what _he_ said. In my head, when he was trying to take over. He said that. _Let me in_.”

A shocked pause. “I… I never knew that.”

Stiles risked a look up at Derek. The guy looked like he’d been dumped in the middle of a field of landmines and didn’t dare make one misstep. Stiles wasn’t even sure Derek was breathing. His Stiles had never talked about this. _Stiles_ didn’t want to talk about it, either, but if this was something he could give to Derek that the other Stiles hadn’t…

“Everyone was at some kind of party, and the nogitsune was saying they were all going to die. He was toying with me. Then everybody started bleeding. They died. But the demon hadn’t done it. It was me. I had a knife.”

Derek was at a loss for words.

Stiles set the mug down on the coffee table, scooted over, and curled over to lean against Derek’s side. He dropped his head on to Derek’s shoulder.

Instantly, Derek’s arms came up around him. “It was just a nightmare,” he said lowly.

“Not for Allison.”

Derek froze a second. “That wasn’t your fault, Stiles.”

“Yeah,” Stiles scowled. “Doesn’t make her any less dead, though.”

They lapsed into a tense silence, Derek half-holding Stiles to him and Stiles tucked up against his side like a child who had a bad dream and ran to daddy.

Eventually, Derek gave him a squeeze to get his attention. “Do you want to come to bed? Just to… I mean, you don’t have to sleep on the couch.”

Stiles shook his head. “You go, though. Sorry I woke you. I’ll be better in the morning.” It usually took hours to shake off the mood that settled over him after one of those nightmares. No reason Derek had to sit around and watch him mope.

“I’m worried about you being better now,” Derek countered. But this must be familiar to him, because he heaved a sigh and moved to get up without putting up more of a fight. Stiles leaned away to give him room. 

When Derek was on his feet, he turned to look down at Stiles.

Stiles did his best to muster a smile.

Without a word, Derek cupped Stiles’ face in one hand and leaned over. For a heartbeat, Stiles thought they were going to kiss. He’d really rather it not happen like this – he was off-kilter from the nogitsune nightmare, and that would stain the moment – but he wasn’t going to tell Derek no. If Derek wanted to kiss him, Stiles was going to let him.

But instead of ducking down to capture his mouth, Derek placed a kiss to Stiles’ forehead. He pulled back just a couple of inches to whisper, “Come get me if you need anything.”

“Okay,” Stiles answered, even though he knew he wouldn’t.

Derek’s thumb smoothed over his cheekbone, then he dropped his hand and went back to the bedroom.

Stiles grabbed his pillow, stuffed it against the armrest, and settled in for a long wait for dawn.

*****************

Stiles was already awake when Derek got up the next morning, lying on the couch with his eyes shut because he just didn’t want to deal with anything yet.

He listened to Derek walk quietly around the living room, stop a couple of times, pick up the cup of cocoa off the coffee table, then go to the kitchen. Stiles imagined Derek putting on a pot of coffee as he heard the sounds of grounds being poured into the filter and a switch flicked on. He could almost see in his mind’s eye Derek getting a glass from the cupboard, opening the fridge, and pouring himself some orange juice from the faint tell-tale sounds.

It was relaxing. Peacefully domestic.

Stiles lay calm and steady as he heard Derek go to the kitchen table and carefully pull out a chair. Then he heard the click and whir of the laptop powering up. 

The next few moments were quiet but for the light peck of keys on the keyboard.

Then there was the familiar bubbly sound of Skype being opened. A call being placed. Derek had the volume turned low – it wasn’t like he needed it to be loud to hear perfectly well – but since Stiles was awake anyway and concentrating he could hear it.

Then he did his damnedest to keep his heartbeat from giving him away when he heard Lydia’s voice on the other end.

“What the hell was that email about, Hale?” she demanded by way of greeting.

“Good morning to you, too, Lydia.”

“Don’t ‘good morning’ me… something’s wrong with Stiles and you wait until _now_ to tell me?”

“I was hoping we could have fixed it before you found out.”

“Really? How’s that working out for you?”

Derek sighed. “Can you not? Please?” He paused. “Do you have any ideas how to help him?”

Lydia muttered something Stiles couldn’t hear, then she said, “I’ll have you know I was up all night looking. My dining room table looks like finals week during law school.”

“And?”

“Sorry…” and she actually sounded like she was. “Nothing so far. I found a few witchcraft spells that can mask a single memory, or alter it like a glamor, but just wiping out years… I don’t know, that could take some time.” She stopped. The silence was weighted. “But that leaves another _big_ problem.”

“Yeah, I know,” Derek answered, and he sounded haggard. “That’s why I didn’t… never mind. Doesn’t matter now.” He stopped. Delayed. “We’ve got to call it off.”

Call off _what_?

“You might not get another chance,” Lydia said gravely. “And if you do, it could be years.”

“I know. But I can’t… with Stiles the way he is right now… it’s bad timing. I don’t see how we can make it work. And it’s not fair to bring anyone else into this.”

“What do you want me to tell her?” Lydia asked, and she sounded so gentle about it. Like this was heartbreaking for Derek and she knew it.

“I don’t know,” Derek said miserably.

“Have you talked to Stiles about this?”

“No. He doesn’t even know. I wanted… I don’t know… I didn’t want to admit it was this big a problem, maybe? Like he’d just wake up one day and things would be back to normal and we could just… But the last couple of days have been… they’ve been eye-opening. I can’t pretend this doesn’t change everything.” Derek sighed in defeat. “Stiles needs my full attention. I have to focus on him right now.”

Stiles couldn’t take it anymore. He got up off the couch and walked into the kitchen to demand answers.

It spoke volumes that he managed to startle the werewolf. He came up behind Derek and asked, “What’s going on?” which made Derek snap his head around toward him.

“I…” he stammered, “I didn’t hear your heartbeat change when you woke up.”

“Because I’ve been awake this whole time. Hi, Lydia.” He waved at her on the computer screen. The resolution wasn’t great, but he could tell that she’d cut her hair in a pixie style. It suited her.

“Hey, Stiles. So Derek tells me you have a hole in your memory?”

“That someone could drive a Mack Truck through.” He came up beside Derek, snagged the nearby table chair, and pushed it flush against Derek’s so they could share the Skype call. “So, want to tell me what this is all about?”

Lydia looked uncertainly at Derek, who was shaking his head at her.

Stiles frowned. “I have a right to know.”

“He’s right,” Lydia agreed.

Derek was tense.

Stiles considered him a moment, thinking. “Lydia, don’t ‘call off’ anything until I’ve had a chance to talk to my husband. Okay?”

Lydia nodded. “Certainly. But… Stiles, I do need to know soon. There is a time limit on this.”

“Okay. We’ll get back with you pdq. And thanks for your help.”

“Take care of yourself.”

Stiles reached over to hang up the call, then he turned a pointed look at Derek. “So?”

“So?” he shot back sourly.

“So you want to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to get it out of Lydia?”

Derek got up and put some distance between them, pacing in front of the back window like a caged animal. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Not now. You’re… you’re in no condition for this.”

“Not helping, man. Just _tell me_.”

Derek rubbed the back of his neck tensely. “We were making plans before whatever-this-is happened to you. But it’s pretty clear we can’t go through with them now, so just forget it.”

“Like hell. Derek, _what plans_?”

Derek blurted it out like it was that or wolf out. “We were going to adopt.”

Stiles’ jaw dropped.

With a resigned sigh, Derek pulled out the chair opposite Stiles and sat down. His keyed-up energy had suddenly left him, and now he just looked… dejected. “A pregnant teenager tracked down Lydia three months ago wanting her to help find someone to adopt her baby once it was born.”

“So, uh…. that’s the kind of work Lydia does? Adoptions?”

Derek shook his head. “Not usually. This was a special case.”

“Special because…?”

“She’s a werewolf.” Derek looked up at Stiles solemnly. “The girl. Annabelle. She’s a werewolf.”

“Oh.”

“She doesn’t have a pack.” Derek frowned. “We don’t know what happened to them. Or to the baby’s father. Annabelle never told us, but I get the feeling it wasn’t pretty. She wouldn’t be the first werewolf to be the last survivor of a decimated pack.” That visibly hit too close to home for Derek. “All we know for sure about her is that she’s alone, she’s pregnant at sixteen, and she isn’t ready to take care of a baby.”

“Were we, uh… had we been thinking of adopting for a while?” Stiles asked, still trying to get his head around this new development.

“We’d talked about it before,” Derek shrugged, “but not seriously. We were open to it, but we weren’t really ready yet. Then Lydia called us and said she needed to find a family for a werewolf newborn.”

“Preferably a werewolf family,” Stiles guessed.

“The child can’t be placed with a human family. We don’t develop the same way you do. There are phases, and shifts, and full moons are tricky even in packs with young. A human couple would think the child was a monster. Our history is full of horror stories about young werewolves who just _disappear_ when humans discover what they are.” Derek sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “So when Lydia asked if we would be interested, we said yes. It was a little sooner than we were planning, but we couldn’t turn Annabelle away.”

Stiles sat there, mind spinning.

“Things happened pretty fast after that. Annabelle was already five months pregnant when she approached Lydia. We went from just kind of thinking about maybe adopting someday to definitely adopting in just a few months. We traded in the Camaro for a more family-friendly car. You quit your job so you’d be able to stay home with the baby. I’ve been working extra days and overtime to try and save up some vacation – when we bring the baby home, I’ll get three weeks paternity leave, but I want to have some more days in the bank in case I need to stay home with you two longer. Oh, and Mrs. McCall is giving us the old baby furniture she has in storage. We were going to turn the office into a nursery.”

“Whoa whoa, okay, stop, my brain’s full,” Stiles made a waving gesture to shut Derek up. Holy shit. “ _Holy shit_.” Stiles put his face in his hands and just grappled with this new information. “Fuck, Derek… you should have told me this. This was _important_.”

“How was I supposed to do that? You were freaking out about being married to me. How was I supposed to say ‘well, buckle up, because we’re about to add a baby to the mix’?”

Okay, he had a point.

“It’s pointless now anyway,” Derek grumbled, “because we can’t do it.”

Stiles gaped at him. “Wait… what about all that stuff you said about werewolf babies and human parents and some fucking terrifying allusions to infanticide? Does that just stop being true because I’m broken?”

“I’m sure Lydia can find another werewolf family. Or… or a werewolf foster. Maybe an orphanage with a werewolf on staff.”

“You don’t sound too sure about that.”

Derek growled, frustrated. “It’s rare for a werewolf to be born without a pack. We don’t usually _need_ those services. Children are born into a family unit, which is a part of a larger pack. Support structures are built-in. It’s…” Derek swallowed, “it’s far more common for children to die with their parents when a pack gets wiped out than for them to be born without one.”

Stiles got up from the table and paced around the kitchen island, just to release some of the anxious energy building up in his limbs. “Who knows about this?”

“Lydia, Dad, Mrs. McCall, Scott and Kira… we haven’t told anyone who doesn’t know about me being a werewolf. When we bring…” Derek hesitated, “when we would have brought the baby home, we would have had to make sure you and I were the only ones around it for a few weeks to bond with it. Since we wouldn’t be its pack by birth. Hard to explain to humans why they couldn’t come over to see the new baby because their scent would confuse it.”

“Oh my god.” Stiles rubbed a hand over his face that he then clapped over his mouth.

Derek slowly stood from the table. He moved as if to approach Stiles, but Stiles made a pathetic squeak sound, and Derek froze. They stood on opposite sides of the kitchen, just staring at each other.

It was a stale-mate that Derek broke. “But like I said, it doesn’t matter now. We can’t bring a baby home to this.”

“You mean to me.”

Derek’s look hardened. “I _mean_ that figuring out what’s happened to you and fixing it is more important to me than having a baby, because _you_ are the most important thing to me.” 

Stiles was speechless.

Derek looked over at the clock and sagged. “I have to go to work. We’ll talk about this later, okay?”

Stiles nodded mutely.

He was still standing in that same spot in the kitchen by the time Derek went out the front door dressed for work.


	10. Chapter 10

Baby bomb or not, Stiles still put together two lunches around noon and drove up to the station to feed his father and Derek, just like he had several days in the past. He needed something to do to keep himself occupied, and he knew his father would fall back on fast food left to his own devices.

Judy at the front desk waved him back when she recognized Stiles, and he walked down to his dad’s office.

He found his father bent over an open file at his desk, rubbing one eyebrow as he studied the case.

“Got time for grilled chicken and broccoli?” Stiles asked, holding up the stack of Tupperware containers.

John looked up and pulled a face at the menu. “Is ‘no’ an acceptable answer?”

“Nope. Where’s Derek?” He set one meal down on his father’s desk, the other still held in hand.

“Just went out on a call, but he shouldn’t be too long. Ms. Abernathy and Mr. Jacobs are having a tiff about the property line again. There was some vandalism of a hedge this time, I hear.”

Stiles turned toward the sheriff’s office door. “Oh god… one day those two are just going to screw each other’s brains out.”

“Well, I wish it would be sooner rather than later. Their aggressive flirting is giving my entire force a headache.” He peeled open the Tupperware lid and looked down mournfully at the healthy fare.

Stiles shut the office door, went to the chair facing his father’s desk, sat down, and leaned forward to tell him, very matter-of-factly, “You asshole.”

“Pardon?” John asked, a piece of broccoli half-way to his mouth.

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “You should have told me about the baby.”

John lowered the broccoli. “Oh.”

“Yes, _oh_.”

John looked uncomfortable. Good. He deserved it for not telling Stiles he was adopting a baby with Derek Hale. Just what the ever-loving fuck?

“I would have… but honestly, I didn’t know how you would take it.”

Stiles gave him a look that screamed ‘that’s no excuse’.

“So I guess Derek told you.”

“I dragged it out of him, more like. I overheard him talking to Lydia this morning telling her to call off the adoption.”

John paled a little. “You’re not…”

The look on his father’s face tempered Stiles’ anger a little. “I don’t know yet. Derek wants to, but…” Stiles slumped down in the chair, Derek’s lunch perched atop his stomach. “I’ve been trying so hard not to screw up this life, you know? But now there’s a _baby_ to consider, and it changes _everything_.”

“Yeah, kids will do that.”

Stiles groaned and roughed a hand through his hair. Then he looked thoughtfully at his father. “Was he… was I excited? About the baby?”

John gave him a look. “Are you sure you want to know?”

Stiles nodded.

“Yeah, you were.”

Stiles tried to imagine that. Scarily, it wasn’t hard. “There’s no baby stuff in the house,” he muttered.

“What?” John asked, stabbing a piece of chicken with a fork.

“There’s no baby stuff in the house. If we were… shouldn’t there be stuff? Derek said Mrs. McCall’s giving us a crib, but don’t parents start getting stuff before now when they know there’s a baby on the way?”

“Derek didn’t talk about that?” John asked warily. At Stiles’ head shake, he sighed, “I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you…”

“ _Dad_.”

“Okay, just… Derek said if an expectant mother doesn’t have a pack, it makes the pregnancy high-risk. The stress of being alone… turns out a lot of mothers in that situation miscarry. Derek’s been gun-shy about getting ready. He was worried Annabelle would lose the baby.”

“Oh, god…” Stiles groaned. Maybe this was his life after all, because it _sucked_. “I can’t let Lydia tell Annabelle we’re backing out of the adoption! She’ll have a miscarriage and that will be on my conscience for the rest of my life!”

John played with a piece of broccoli. “I don’t know what to tell you, kiddo. There’s not an easy answer for this.”

“Actually, there _is_ an easy answer,” Stiles countered bitterly. “If I could remember the last seven years.” All his problems would go away if he could get back those last seven years.

John conceded with a shrug-nod combination. “Or…”

“Or?” Stiles perked up. Because if there was another easy solution to this, he wanted to hear it.

“Maybe you could trust yourself. Trust the guy that got you here.”

Stiles stared, slack-jaw. Was that it? Another Stiles brought him this far, but now it was on him to take care of his family? Stiles could waffle on how his counter-part would feel about Stiles sleeping with his husband, but Stiles was pretty sure Other Stiles would be _pissed_ if he ruined this chance to start a family with Derek.

He needed to think.

“I’m going to take off,” Stiles said, sitting up and putting Derek’s lunch on the corner of the desk. “Make sure he gets this?”

“You bet.”

Stiles started to get up and froze half-way. “And don’t shovel your broccoli into his container the second I turn my back. _Eat your vegetables_.”

“Where’s the trust?” John asked, feigning insult.

Stiles rolled his eyes, stood, and moved toward the door.

Before he got there, his father called, “Hey, Stiles?”

Stiles turned back to him.

“For what it’s worth, you’d be a good dad.”

That made something in Stiles’ chest ache… but not in a bad way.

****************

The graveyard was probably the most unchanged thing Stiles had encountered so far in this world. The names on the stones were the same as he passed by them, the marble and granite just a little more weathered. The grief a little less fresh.

There was a stately grace to the long-dead. They were the guardians of the lost. Newer plots further out were watched over by those who had been laid to rest years ago.

Stiles used to feel so much agony here. So much fury. Now he felt the ache of missing someone, but mostly he felt love. The love endured longer than the anger.

“Hey, Mom,” Stiles said softly as he tapped the bundle of flowers against his thigh. “I, uh… brought these for you.” He stepped forward to lay the arrangement against the base of the tombstone. He took a moment to brush his fingers over the engraved epitaph.

_‘Claudia Stilinski_

_11/23/1972 – 6/5/2004_

_Forever Love’_

Stiles sat down cross-legged on the grass beside her. “You know, I told Dad once it was pointless to bring you flowers because people just stole them. He said it was the doing it that mattered. I didn’t get it then, but I think I do now. It’s not about flowers. It’s about not forgetting.” Stiles ruffled his hair. “Which is, ironically, kind of my problem right now.”

He sat in silence a moment, looking down at his hands, fingering the wedding band on his left ring finger.

“I thought this was a different world, like a parallel universe, and that somehow I got stuck here. And I couldn’t get comfortable, because sooner or later I’d have to go back. But now… I don’t know. Am I him? I have his scars. I have his tattoo.” Stiles winced and looked up, “Whoops… hope you already knew about that.” He gave a crooked smile, trying to imagine his mother’s look of quiet disapproval. Patient and loving and thinking clearly to herself ‘Stiles, what am I going to do with you?’ 

Love him. The answer was always love him.

“Did you know Derek and I are supposed to be adopting a baby soon? A baby that’s… like Derek. I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, but it doesn’t really matter. The mom, Annabelle… she’s in a tough spot. She can’t keep the baby. She asked a friend of ours to find it a home where it would be understood. Where it would be loved. So she came to us.”

Stiles picked at a loose thread on a worn section of his jeans.

“I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know the right thing to do. I feel like I didn’t earn this. Derek or a baby or any of it. This is more than I ever dreamed of having, and I don’t deserve it, but I…” Stiles swallowed, heart thudding hard in his chest as he worked up the courage to _say it_. He was safe here. His mother wouldn’t judge him. 

He could finally _say it_.

“I want to stay.”

He held his breath, part of him expecting some kind of cosmic fallout the second he uttered the words.

Nothing happened.

His mother listened peacefully. He confessed his heart’s desire, and there were no recriminations. He felt no disappointment. Only forever love.

“Everyone says I’m this Stiles. I hope I am. I want to be. But if I’m not… if I’m not and I stay here, and it means I’ve taken it from some other Stiles who deserves to be here more than I do… will you forgive me?”

There was, of course, no answer. Nothing verbal, in any case. But Stiles felt like he knew what his mother would have said. There was nothing he could do for which his mother would not forgive him. Especially this. He wasn’t asking forgiveness for killing someone (though there was a dark place in his soul where that did fester, a nogitsune-infection in his heart). No. He was asking to be forgiven for allowing himself a shot at his happily ever after.

Surely he wasn’t the villain for wanting that.

He knew his mother wouldn’t see him as the bad guy for wanting it.

“Thanks, Mom,” Stiles said affectionately, reaching out to touch the sun-warmed stone of her name. He felt better.

He stood, brushed off his pants, then he headed back to the car. The Honda that they got because there was plenty of room in the back for a car seat. Stiles took back his earlier slight… he _liked_ this car.

When he got in the driver’s side, he sat in the parked car and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He scrolled through his contact list, selected Scott’s name, and dialed.

McCall picked up on the third ring. “Hi, Stiles. I was going to call you, but we got pretty busy. Not that there’s much to report. Sorry, man, but Kira and I don’t have anything promising yet on your… situation. I’ve been tracking down some of Deaton’s old contacts to see if they might know somebody who knows somebody…”

“Well, that’s actually why I’m calling. Is Kira there?”

“Uh… yeah, sure. She’s just in the bedroom packing. Let me go get her.” Some muffled noises, then Scott came back, “Okay, you’re on speaker.”

“Hi, Stiles,” Kira said. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine. Listen… you know how I asked you guys to try find a way to send me back to my own world or universe or whatever?”

“… yeeeah…” they said in unison, and any other time Stiles might have laughed and taunted them for being so married.

“Right, well, forget all that. I want you to do something else for me instead.”

There was an understandable, uncomfortable pause from their end. “Um…” Scott’s voice, hesitant, “okay… what then?”

“I want back the last seven years.” Stiles tapped his left hand against the steering wheel in a nervous drum solo. His eyes caught on his wedding ring. “I want my memories.”

“ _Your_ memories?” Scott stressed. Because that detail was important. Vitally important. They all knew how central it was to the crisis that was Stiles’ life right now.

Stiles took a breath. Moment of truth. Time to own it. “ _My_ memories.”

He waited for criticism. He waited for them to rail at him. He kept waiting for _someone_ to tell him ‘how dare you, you have no right’.

“You got it,” Scott said instead, sounding relieved rather than appalled. “We won’t let you down.”

Stiles let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Stiles,” Kira interjected, “can you Skype with us tomorrow evening? We’re leaving for my parents’ in the morning, and I’d like you to talk to my mother, too.”

“Yeah, I can do that.” So they might not have an emissary on speed dial, but two werewolves, a banshee, and a pair of kitsune had to be just as good, right?

He was going to get his life back, no matter what it took.

*********************

Stiles spent hours coming up with a plan. He went over in his head everything he was going to say to Derek when he got home. Granted, a lot of it was Stiles apologizing. He’d put Derek through a lot of unnecessary torment by clinging to his Stiles: Traveler of Parallel Universes! theory. Now that he’d given himself permission to embrace this life, he was going to be good at it, god damnit. 

But first he had to patch up his relationship with Derek.

Baking a cake wasn’t exactly original, but it was a start.

Of course, the more time he had to think, the more he started to worry that it might not go well. He _hoped_ it did. He kind of planned for it to. But they hadn’t really been one with the warm-fuzzies that morning. Derek had to have a breaking point, and Stiles had given him plenty of opportunities to hit it.

Wouldn’t that just figure that when Stiles was ready to throw in, Derek got fed up and walked out? No one could say Stiles didn’t deserve that.

So when Derek pulled up to the house at half-past five, Stiles basically had his heart in his throat.

Derek walked in the front door with keys in one hand, two empty Tupperware containers under the other arm, and he paused in the foyer when he saw Stiles standing in the living room waiting for him like it was an intervention.

“Hey,” Stiles said lamely. He twisted his fingers together to try and still the nervous energy twitching through them.

“Um… hey?” Derek blinked at him, puzzled, then he turned his head ever-so-slightly to one side, listening. Stiles imagined a non-werewolf would be able to hear his heartbeat. Derek looked closely at Stiles. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Peachy. Okie dokie.” His heart was about to jump out of his chest and he was jittery like he’d chugged three espressos, but other than that everything was swell.

“If you say so,” Derek said but did not believe. He gave Stiles a look like he was being stranger than usual, then headed into the kitchen.

Stiles shuffled and fidgeted in place for all of five seconds before he followed after him.

Derek put the Tupperware down and wandered over to the cake on the counter. He looked down at the message written in icing. “Sorry I’m an asshole,” he read aloud and looked over at Stiles, torn between being puzzled and laughing at the absurd decoration.

“Better late than never?” Stiles aimed for jocular and missed it by a mile. He cleared his throat, “So here’s the thing… I did some thinking today. A lot of thinking, actually.”

“Yeah?” Derek looked cautiously hopeful. After all, people probably didn’t break bad news with cake.

For all the times Stiles had gone over this in his head, suddenly he couldn’t remember any of the possible ways to start this conversation. He thumped his fist against the countertop, trying to wrack his brain for words. In a flood of inspiration, he snapped his fingers and held a hand out in Derek’s direction. “You know Occam’s razor?” he asked.

Derek quirked an eyebrow. “I’m not an idiot, Stiles.”

“No, no, I know… but I think _I_ am. Because that Other Time-Travelling Stiles from the Fourth Dimension idea was…” Stiles made a ‘ka-pew ka-pew’ noise and flashed his hands around his head simulating explosions. “I wouldn’t let go of the most unlikely scenario of all the possible scenarios. Why, even? Like you said. I have the scars. And I have the tattoo. That doesn’t make sense. So many things were wrong with Quantum Leap, if you think too hard about the science.”

“Stiles… you’re off track. Could you bring it back to center for me?”

“Right, yeah, sorry.” He took a breath and looked down at his hands pressed flat against the counter. He tallied up ten fingers. He counted his breaths. Numbered his heartbeats. It settled him just enough that he didn’t feel like he was seconds away from flying off the edge of the earth.

He looked up at Derek again. “I talked to Scott and Kira today. I told them I want my memories back.”

Derek inhaled sharply.

“I’m tired of acting like I don’t want this,” Stiles said in a garbled rush, “because I want this life, it’s _mine_ , and that’s okay, right? I can want this?” He looked desperately toward Derek, hoping the answer was yes.

“Stiles…” Derek started to take a step toward him, then ground to a halt and stepped back. His expression darkened in an instant. “Is this… are you just saying that because of the baby?”

Stiles held Derek’s gaze and did not so much as blink. “Listen to my heart. _I love you_.” He waited a beat. “Am I lying?”

Derek’s breath escaped him in a shaky rush. He started to smile and gave a faint shake of his head.

Okay, one down, one to go. “Do you love me?”

Derek’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I’m not asking if you love the Stiles who went on that road trip with you, or the Stiles you married, or the Stiles who bought this house with you.” He still didn’t have those memories. _Yet_. Until he did, he couldn’t completely be that same Stiles. All he had to offer was himself, Stiles, as he was. “I mean me Stiles, right here, right now. Do you love _me_?”

“Yes.”

Not even a hint of hesitation. Just _yes_. Like it was that simple. Because for Derek, it was. It always had been. Stiles was his _mate_. He was wired into Derek’s werewolf psychology. Cozy between the amygdala and hippocampus. _Permanent_.

“Oh, thank god,” Stiles slumped against the counter, surprised at how wobbly he felt in the knees. Part of him had been afraid he’d done too much damage. That his marriage was beyond repair because he’d been an idiot and afraid to let himself be happy.

It was an overwhelming feeling, like a kissing-cousin of a panic attack, to know that he _hadn’t_. He still had a husband. He could live happily ever after.

 _Wow_.

Stiles startled when a hand landed softly on his back. He stood upright and found himself looking right at Derek. Derek was up in his space, closely studying the details of Stiles’ face… as if he’d been away for a long time.

Stiles’ heart skipped a beat and his eyes skittered down to Derek’s mouth, so tantalizingly close. He half-blinked slowly.

Derek curled his hand around the back of Stiles’ neck, swooped in, and kissed him.

He landed with closed lips. Stiles opened his mouth and darted his tongue out to lick the seam of Derek’s lips.

It was like unleashing a wild animal. Derek crowded closer, backing Stiles up roughly against the kitchen counter and trapping him with the press of his body. Derek’s kiss turned heated in a split-second. Stiles made a strangled noise and wrapped his arms around Derek’s shoulders to draw him closer. He matched Derek’s hungry kisses, clutching at his neck and back when he couldn’t stop his hands from wanting to touch all of him at once. Derek growled and fisted at Stiles’ shirt like he was a second away from tearing it apart.

Stiles didn’t know it could be so _good_. He pried his mouth free of Derek’s so he could _breathe_. Head canted back so he could suck in oxygen. Derek seized the chance to tuck his face into the crook of Stiles’ neck and scent him. He pawed at Stiles’ sides, growing frustrated with the shirt.

Stiles tried to reach down and tug it off, but Derek’s hands were in the way and he wouldn’t move. Instead, Derek nipped at Stiles’ neck (and _whoa_ , who knew biting was going to be one of his kinks?), then he gathered the hem of Stiles’ shirt in both hands and leaned back only long enough strip Stiles of his shirt.

Stiles was fumbling at Derek’s buttons, determined to exact a little tit for tat. He wanted _skin_ , damnit.

When Stiles’ hand bumped against Derek’s service weapon, the werewolf drew back quickly, grabbing the wrist of the offending hand on reflex. “Wait… bedroom.”

Stiles nodded, dazed and in a lust-haze, and made a beeline. Derek, still holding on to Stiles’ wrist, was hauled along.

In their room, Derek properly put away his gun and kicked off his shoes before he turned back to face Stiles. He let out an “oomph!” when Stiles practically crashed into him, yanking at buttons impatiently. Derek grinned and started to help, the two of them making more of a mess of Derek’s work shirt than they were efficiently removing it, but there was something satisfying about buttons landing on the floor with a ricocheting clink-clink.

 _Finally_ , Derek was bare-chested. Stiles plastered his hands to abs… oh yeah, just as ripped to the touch as he’d fantasized they would be. He wanted to do a more thorough investigation, but Derek was pushing at him, forcing Stiles to take a step back. Another. Another. He gave Stiles a push.

Stiles squawked and landed on his back on the bed, looking up at Derek as the werewolf was staring down at him. He was magnificent. Chest bellowing with his excited breath, nostrils flared to catch Stiles’ scent, his eyes flecked with slivers of blue.

 _Yes_ , please. All of that. Now.

Stiles sat up on the edge of the bed and started on Derek’s belt. He made fast work of Derek’s fly. He pulled down Derek’s pants and underwear and just… stared. Agog. It wasn’t a word to be used lightly, because used too often it became silly, but seeing Derek’s dick in an aroused state for the first time called for it. _Agog_.

Half-hard and heavy between Derek’s muscular legs. Hardening more for Stiles. Ooooh man. Stiles-approved.

Derek shucked out of his clothes and crowded Stiles backward on the mattress until Derek could climb in bed. Before Stiles had time to process what was happening, he was flat on his back with Derek on hands and knees over him. His eyes were full-blown blue, burning ice and fire _through_ Stiles, seeing more than Stiles could ever dream.

Derek snarled in annoyance and grabbed the waistline of Stiles’ sleep pants and Stiles lifted his hips so Derek could banish the last scrap of clothing from their bed. Derek flung them across the room then dove back to bury his face against Stiles’ neck. He scented first, then he was kissing. Then he was sucking and nipping.

“God…” Stiles groaned, tangling his fingers in Derek’s hair. One of Derek’s hand was on Stiles’ chest, sliding over his nipple then curling down against his ribcage. The other hand supported Derek’s weight above his partner.

Stiles wasn’t getting to do nearly enough touching. He let loose his grip on Derek’s hair with one hand and snaked it down between their bodies, blindly searching for Derek’s erection.

He barely got to touch it, a tease really, before Derek swatted his hand away. “Hey,” Stiles started to protest, but it turned into a moan when Derek moved down to scrape his teeth over Stiles’ collar bone and chest. His back arched into the contact, shivering when Derek’s breath ghosted over his other nipple.

How many horny teenage fantasies had he had about this man doing this stuff to him? How many shameful-but-oh-so-intense jerk off sessions had he rubbed out thinking about Derek Hale? All taut muscle and superhuman strength and badassery. An embarrassing number. Because Stiles was a dorky teen with a crush on an adult man way out of his league.

Except he _wasn’t_. He wasn’t a kid anymore, and this was his _husband_.

“Oo.. _oooh_ …!” Stiles trembled and clenched his eyes hard, fighting his body’s urge to come right then. Not yet, damnit! Not before he’d even got to fucking _touch_. Stiles panted and struggled to keep it together.

Derek stopped and looked up at him. He knew Stiles’ sounds. He backed off and watched. Stiles grabbed at the pillow at either side of his head to ride it out. They both waited to see if Stiles was about to blow.

It was a near thing, a fucking _miracle_ , but he didn’t. If Derek hadn’t moved off when he did, Stiles would be covered in spunk. The sudden loss of Derek’s touch let Stiles pull back from the edge, but not by fucking much. Stiles opened his eyes and looked down at Derek, crouched like a feral creature near his hip. He licked his lips. “Uh… not going to last long here, Derek,” he said shakily.

“Then let’s stop wasting time,” Derek answered, voice gruff and malted sex, and crawled up between Stiles’ legs. Stiles shifted, bending his legs and parting his knees to frame Derek’s hips as he sank his body down. Stiles propped himself up on one elbow, reached for Derek, and hauled him into a kiss as Derek rocked their bodies together, skin and friction and heat and glory exploding in Stiles’ brain. He could do this every second of every day for the rest of his fucking life.

Derek closed his hand over Stiles’ thigh… then traced pale skin down between his legs, snaked fingers down to the cleft of Stiles’ ass…

And found Stiles open and slick.

Derek jerked back, eyes wide. “Did you…” he looked toward the nightstand, where the lube was missing. Derek craned further to look toward the bathroom, where the container sat open on the sink. Derek jerked his eyes back to Stiles. “You _prepped_ yourself?”

It had been one _hell_ of a presumption on his part, and Stiles had felt ridiculous at first when he started doing it. But he’d been ‘questioning’ for a while. He’d seen gay porn. He knew anal didn’t just happen without work. And Stiles didn’t remember doing this before; he didn’t want to do it badly. He didn’t want to feel so _virginal_ (because he sure as hell hadn’t done _this_ with Malia). He was a grown, married man, god damnit. So he’d eased himself open in private, at his own pace, without the pressure of Derek waiting for him to be ready.

But if any of this had gone differently, Stiles would have felt like an idiot for what he’d been doing in the bathroom before Derek got home.

He could feel himself blushing under Derek’s scrutiny.

His efforts and planning were rewarded when Derek smiled and leaned in to kiss him. It brought their bodies into too much contact, and Stiles whined, “If you don’t get in me now, I’m going to come without you.”

Derek growled, then he was manhandling Stiles until he was at the perfect spot, the just-right angle, and pushing into him.

It was exquisite overload. Every brain cell Stiles had was going haywire. Stiles’ arms and legs scrambled for purchase for a mindless moment, just an autonomic flail, before he relaxed into Derek’s hold and trusted him. He knew how to do this. Derek sank into him, sheathed himself completely inside Stiles at the end of a long exhale. Derek tucked his face into Stiles’ neck while Stiles experimented with his positioning, suddenly feeling like he was all limb with knees and elbows he didn’t know what to do with. He wrapped his legs around Derek and Derek pressed in deeper, _harder_ , at the changed cant of Stiles’ pelvis, and Stiles’ eyes rolled back. Oh yeah, _this_.

“Move,” Stiles pleaded, rocking against Derek to goad him. He was going to come, and he wanted _more_ before he did.

Derek growled softly against Stiles’ throat and obeyed, pulling back and thrusting forward. Stiles whimpered and grabbed at Derek’s waist. _Shit_ , this was so good. He was _made_ for this.

He felt his orgasm building low in his belly, curling hot and explosive at the base of his spine, crackling in his veins like liquid lightning.

Too soon. Not enough. 

“Derek…” Stiles rasped, taking one hand and clutching at the back of Derek’s neck to pull their faces close. He made a sound, meant to tell Derek to wait, to make it less so he could hold on longer, so he could just… _just_ …

Derek rocked forward, closed his teeth on the juncture where Stiles’ neck met his shoulder, and bit him.

Stiles gave a garbled shout and came hard, arching and painting their bellies in stripes of white. Derek let loose a pleased, beastly sound against Stiles’ skin that vibrated through his entire body and he shuddered, spurting another string of come on Derek’s stomach. For the first time in his life, Stiles really understood the meaning of _ecstasy_. It was coming on Derek Hale with the man’s teeth in his flesh.

Derek unlocked his teeth from Stiles’ neck and immediately kissed the spot where he had broken skin. “Mine,” Derek rumbled in Stiles’ ear.

Stiles gulped for breath, body going supple in Derek’s arms. “Yours.” 

The pace of Derek’s hips picked up then. Stiles tried to be exactly where Derek wanted him, tried to give him the best angle to go deeper, and he gazed up in wonder when he could _see_ it. He could see Derek about to climax. He could see his body tensing, the rhythm of his hips faltering, his eyes so fucking luminous.

Right when he was on the edge, Stiles threw an arm around Derek’s neck to draw him closer, latched his teeth onto the sweaty sweep of Derek’s throat, and bit down.

Derek exploded. He snapped his hips into Stiles as he came. He shook and made a half-wild sound as he rode out the orgasm, anchored between Stiles’ legs and Stiles’ teeth.

When Derek went lax and eased down to rest his weight atop Stiles, Stiles released the bite and softly kissed the broken skin – already healing – left behind. “Mine,” he whispered.

Derek grumbled something that sounded like a muffled “yours” and wrapped his arms around Stiles in the fiercest snuggle known to man or werewolf.

The question, Stiles decided, was why the _fuck_ he’d waited so long to do that?


	11. Chapter 11

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight… nine… _ten_ …”

He’d counted his fingers four times now, but Stiles kept coming up with ten.

“You’re not dreaming,” Derek grumbled sleepily on the bed beside him, head turned into his pillow in a bid to stay asleep, “but I _was_.”

“Sorry.” Stiles dropped his hands on to his stomach and blinked up at the ceiling. Someone left the bathroom light on last night (probably him), so he could actually see despite the hour.

It was early. Too early, really, but Stiles couldn’t sleep. He’d woken up a little while ago, naked in bed with Derek, and that had called for a roll-call of digits. At least this time he didn’t need stitches.

“What time’s it?” Derek asked, groggy.

Stiles looked over at the alarm clock beside him (because at some point they’d managed to switch sides, so he was on Derek’s half of the bed). “It’s, uh… oh… it’s five-thirty. Whoops.”

That earned Stiles a grunt as Derek shifted and settled partially on his stomach to try and go back to sleep.

Stiles lay perfectly still for a grand total of ten seconds before he glanced over at Derek’s naked backside. Broad shoulders and triskele tattoo and tapered waist and perfect ass all just begging to be touched.

Stiles always did have poor impulse control. He flipped on to his side and scooted across the mattress to mold himself to Derek’s back. Because he could. He slipped an arm around Derek’s body, eliciting a content hum from the dozing werewolf.

“You’re so cuddly,” Stiles teased, “who would have thought the big bad wolf’s kryptonite would be cuddles?”

“Bite me.”

So Stiles did. Just a playful nip at Derek’s shoulder, but it made Derek twitch and growl. It wasn’t an angry growl, though. It was _feisty_.

“Guess it makes total sense you’d have a thing for biting,” Stiles chuckled.

“I didn’t hear you complaining last night.”

“You’re a bad influence.”

Derek snorted. Then, just to be a shit, he said in mock-indignation, “You know, _some of us_ have work in a couple of hours.”

“What’s your point?” Stiles traced his fingers over Derek’s stomach, thinking he could seriously do laundry on those washboard abs.

“A decent person would let other people sleep.”

“Sure, sure,” Stiles agreed, even as he was sliding his hand down Derek’s belly, reaching into the space between Derek’s pelvis and the mattress. “You sleep. While I just… do this.” Stiles gave Derek a languid grope. Derek’s flesh was warm and not-so-soft.

“Fuck,” Derek breathed.

“Nope, you sleep.” Stiles wrapped his hand around Derek’s dick, feeling the weight of it. With the gap in his memory, this was new to him. He wanted to memorize every little detail.

“You want me to sleep while you – _uh_ ,” Derek tensed as Stiles gave him an experimental stroke.

“Sure… multitask.”

Derek huffed and moved his hips, impatient with the pace Stiles was setting.

It was on purpose, though. Last night had happened so fast. It was awesome to the power of ten, but it was over too soon. Stiles wanted to take the time to see and touch and feel and hear it all.

And Derek must have understood – or he didn’t mind a lazy early morning hand-job – because he didn’t turn over to do more. He sure as shit wasn’t sleeping, though. He was panting and moaning and rocking his hips to thrust into Stiles’ fist. Stiles propped himself up on his left elbow so he could lean over and watch his hand stroke up and down Derek’s erection. It was the most arousing thing Stiles had seen in his entire god-damn life. Thick and flushed in Stiles’ hand, straining toward Derek’s belly, so responsive to Stiles’ touch. Stiles didn’t even try to hide his own erection pressed firmly to Derek’s back. Stiles had his attention fully focused elsewhere, so his own dick would just have to wait its fucking turn. He was _intent_.

Intent on the intoxicating release of pre-come when Stiles rolled his thumb over the head. On the heady sense of empowerment when Derek shook under his weaker hand. Super-strong werewolf brought to ruin by a mere human’s touch. Derek growled and his refrain from participation broke as he barreled headlong toward climax. Derek shoved his own hand down into the space between bed and bodies to join Stiles’ fist. He covered Stiles’ hand with his own and forced Stiles to speed up, established a hard pace of hands stroking fast while Derek shoved up into the circle of Stiles’ fingers and palm with his hips.

Stiles was shaky and breathless and in real danger of making a mess all over the small of Derek’s back when Derek arched into him and gave a strangled shout and Stiles stared hungrily at the spurts of come coating their joined fingers, getting on Derek’s stomach, and smearing on the sheets. Derek stopped dictating the rhythm, and Stiles finished stroking Derek through his orgasm, coaxing out every pulse of stickiness he could.

When Derek was spent, Stiles pulled his hand away. He flopped over on to his back to stare upward in a fog. “ _Fuck_ ,” he groaned, then he reached down blindly with the hand messy with Derek’s ejaculation and took hold of his own dick. He started to jerk off, hard and fast. There was no thought to finesse. Fuck making it last. He just wanted to _come_.

At that, Derek finally rolled over. He didn’t touch immediately, though, and Stiles tore his eyes from his random focal spot on the ceiling to look toward Derek. He was watching Stiles masturbate, gaze hot like burning on his skin, then he reached out and rested a hand on the inside of Stiles’ left thigh.

Stiles whimpered and opened his legs to offer the invitation. For whatever Derek had in mind. Just letting him know it was there. But he didn’t stop stroking.

With his next action, Stiles was pretty sure Derek was just set on driving him mad. He slipped his hand down Stiles’ thigh, settled it between his legs, palming his balls. That’s it. He didn’t take over for Stiles’ hand or venture down to Stiles’ ass, just fondled his nuts.

It didn’t matter, Stiles had been on the razor’s edge to start, and fisted the sheets in his free hand and threw his head back as he came, spilling hot and wet on his stomach. The noises he made were obscene and utterly out of his control. He tugged on his dick until the orgasm faded, then he dropped his hand to the side and sighed, “Holy shit…”

Derek’s hand on his balls caressed up the underside of Stiles’ length then pressed flat, fingers splayed, in the mess on his abdomen. Stiles blinked down and watched, curious, as Derek rubbed Stiles’ belly, smearing the come around. Then Stiles gasped when Derek leaned forward, nose nearly pressed to Stiles’ stomach, and breathed in, long and deep. He scented Stiles’ come-covered skin like a cocaine addict doing lines.

“I’m just catnip to you, aren’t I?” Stiles asked roughly, tangling the clean fingers of his left hand in the hair at the back of Derek’s head.

Derek made a half-grunt, half-growl noise, then licked a long stripe from Stiles’ navel to his right nipple.

“For the love of _fuck me_ ,” Stiles hissed, fisting Derek’s hair.

Derek lifted his face and looked up at Stiles, a cocky smirk in place on his lips. Stiles regarded him a moment before pulling him closer for a kiss.

Morning breath and Stiles jizz were no substitute for Crest. “Blech,” he gave Derek’s chest a playful shove.

Derek chuckled and ducked underneath Stiles’ jaw to bite softly at his throat. Stiles’ breath caught and he cleared his throat. “Hey, man… some of us are trying to get some sleep.”

“So sleep,” Derek hummed against his neck, teeth catching against his skin, “while I just…” he bit gently again.

“Sleep while you do that?”

“Multitask.”

Stiles laughed and curled his arms around Derek’s shoulders. “Is the sex always like this?”

“Well, around the full moon it can be kind of rough, but yeah… usually.”

Stiles shivered at the thought. “I fucking _love_ being married to you.”

Derek smiled against his skin. “Me too.”

*******************

Stiles wondered if it was a thing to be sex-drunk. Because Derek got up, got ready for work, left, and Stiles still felt pleasantly debauched. Like the high of bedding Derek Hale lingered in the bloodstream. Throughout the day, he kept catching himself smiling or touching the bite-mark on his neck. He felt as if he were partly made of air and light.

He thought maybe it was just the first time in a long time he’d been happy and that he didn’t remember what it felt like. He probably hadn’t been anything close to this happy since before his mom got sick.

Which was sad if you thought about it, so Stiles didn’t.

He got a text from his dad at one point.

_Dad: derek in a very good mood today :)_

Stiles groaned and texted back:

_Stiles: don’t make it weird dad_

But it felt _good_.

Stiles spent most of the day on the internet. First looking up amnesia: all the different types, causes, treatments, prognoses. There was anterograde and retrograde and event-specific; types caused by traumatic brain injury and pharmaceuticals and other types linked to mental illness. Stiles stopped reading at that point. He was sure the others had looked into the garden-variety human explanations for his lost time. If he was missing seven years because he was sick in the brain…

Maybe he _should_ schedule an MRI. Just to rule it out.

After that, he switched to surfing websites about newborn care and parenting. He assumed he’d been doing this for months, but of course he didn’t remember anything he’d read. He had to catch up. And he didn’t have long to get smart on it. Then he had a slight panic moment when it occurred to him that most or _all_ of what he was reading might not even be applicable to a werewolf baby. 

And shit, how long before the little guy or girl was stronger than he was? Would the terrible twos mean Stiles became really friendly with the ER staff? What if the kid wolfed out in kindergarten? God, was he going to have to chain his kid to a radiator every full moon? 

Did he need to take the bite just to be equipped to handle his own child?

When Derek came home not long after five, Stiles greeted him at the door with a frenzied, “I am going to be a terrible werewolf father!”

Derek blinked at him at first, ambushed by the meltdown the second he stepped through the door, then he went, “Oh… we’re going to have to do this again?”

“What? Again? How’s that?” Stiles asked, raking his fingers through his hair and leaving it spiked in weird places. He needed to get it cut. He probably looked like a mad scientist.

“You already freaked out about all this before.” Derek sighed and nodded in understanding. “Guess we need to go over it again.” He put his keys in the bowl, turned to Stiles, and took him by the shoulders like one might when talking to an upset child. “It’s going to be fine. The baby is a born werewolf, so a lot of it is going to be easier than anything that happens to turned werewolves. It won’t be traumatic like it was for Scott or Isaac to turn. And just having another werewolf around for guidance will make a big difference. I got through school, and our son or daughter will, too. It’s going to be _fine_. And no, you’re not going to have to chain the baby to the radiator.”

Stiles let out a nervous laugh. “Okay… okay.” He frowned in thought, “but should I…”

Derek let his shoulders go and gave him a stern look. “No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“You were going to ask about taking the bite. Because you did last time.”

Stiles squared his shoulders. “I would, you know. I’m sure Scott would do it. If that would be best for the baby, two werewolf parents…”

“Stiles,” Derek said, his voice torn between affection and exasperation. Then he stepped forward and hugged him. “I love that you’d do it. There have been so many times over the years when it would have been an easy answer – for you to just take the bite – but you refused every time. Amazingly stubborn human. The fact that you’d be willing to be turned for this…” Derek drew back to look him in the eye, “but you _don’t have to do that_. It isn’t necessary. There were humans in my pack when I was growing up, and they managed. You will too. You always do.”

“Right,” Stiles smirked, “always was the dumbass human running with wolves.”

“Good thing for us, too. Saved our asses more than once.” Derek made a wry face and reached up to pat down Stiles’ hair. “So… freak-out over?”

“For now,” Stiles allowed.

Derek rolled his eyes and moved away to go to the bedroom and change out of his uniform.

Stiles followed. He wouldn’t turn down a free show.

**********************

While Derek was clearing away the dishes from dinner, Stiles pulled up his laptop on the kitchen table and signed in to Skype.

Almost immediately, Scott’s icon was ringing at him.

“Hi, Scott,” Stiles waved a greeting when his friend’s face appeared on the screen. Stiles still wasn’t used to seeing the beard. He had a knee-jerk laugh reaction every time, but because he wasn’t a teenager anymore, he bit his tongue and didn’t. Wanted to, though.

Before either one of them could start a proper conversation, the call was hijacked. Stiles smiled when a little body launched itself into Scott’s lap and twisted to face the computer. A little girl with Kira’s eyes and Scott’s nose and nearly-black hair that seemed perpetually untamed.

“Hi, Uncles Stiles!”

“Hi, Rene.” 

“Do you like kitties?”

“Well, who _doesn’t_ like kitties?” he asked like it was the most preposterous question ever. He bet Derek didn’t. Derek didn’t seem like a cat-person. He’d probably just stare at a cat with that ‘why are you breathing my air?’ judgmental look of his.

“I got to pet _four_ of them!” Rene proudly held up three fingers.

“That’s three, sweetie,” Scott said patiently. “How many kittens did you pet?”

“Oh,” she looked mutinously at her fingers and popped up her pinky. “I petted _four_ kitties!”

“What a lucky girl,” Stiles marveled. “I didn’t get to pet any kittens today.” Got to pet a werewolf, though. Not in any place it was okay to tell children about, of course.

“One was gray, and one was orange, and another one was gray, then one was black. What color one is your favorite, Uncle Stiles?”

“Gotta go with the black one, kiddo.”

“I liked that one, too! I wanted to take it home, but Mommy said no.” She pouted.

“Pets are a lot of work,” Stiles said diplomatically, not keen to make Kira out to be the bad guy.

“I _know_ ,” Rene rolled her eyes. “Mommy said so. But they were cute!”

Before Stiles had to come up with a response that wouldn’t get him trouble with the McCalls, Derek came up behind Stiles and Rene squeaked excitedly when she saw him. “Hi, Uncle Derek!”

“Hi, baby. Are you being good for your mom and dad?”

“I’d be gooder if I had a kitty… don’t you want a kitty, Uncle Derek?”

“It’s hard enough taking care of Uncle Stiles, and he’s _mostly_ house-trained.”

“Hey!” Stiles reached back to swat at Derek’s arm, using the tiny Skype screen of his side of the conversation for aiming purposes. Derek turned aside, defending with his arms. Stiles made a passing swipe at best. In retaliation, Derek grabbed the back of Stiles’ chair and hauled it back on to just two legs. Stiles squawked and grabbed for the table so he wouldn’t fall backward. Not that Derek would have let him. He just wanted the unmanly yelp, and once he got it he set the chair back on all fours.

Rene giggled. “You two are funny!”

“And he says _I’m_ the one not house-trained,” Stiles grumbled theatrically. “I’m considering putting him in obedience school. He doesn’t listen, he chews on the furniture, and he _bites_.” Stiles threw a look over his shoulder at Derek at that last, winking.

Derek clicked his teeth together in an air-bite. “But I can fetch. I was just going to ask if you wanted something to drink.”

“Yeah, sounds good. Thanks.” Stiles turned back to the Skype window.

“Rene,” Scott was saying, “do you want to go play with Grandpa?”

“Oooooh, but I wanna talk to Uncle Stiles and Uncle Derek!” She narrowed her little eyes at her father. “Is this when you _ask_ if I want to do something but I really gotta do it?”

“Yep. Go see what Grandpa’s up to and let me talk to Uncle Stiles.”

Life was rough for a four-and-a-half-year-old girl. “Okay, fine… bye, Uncle Stiles!”

“Bye, Re.”

“Bye, Uncle Derek!” Rene yelled into the computer.

“Later, baby!” Derek called back from the kitchen sink.

When Scott had unloaded his little passenger, he turned back to the call. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.”

“So… you and Derek seem to be doing okay.”

Stiles couldn’t help a smile. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Please,” Scott scoffed, “this from the guy who got a tattoo to honor the day he got laid by Derek Hale.”

“If _that_ night was anything like _last_ night, trust me, you would have gotten a tattoo, too.”

Scott made a face. “That’s… way more than I needed to know.”

“Don’t open a door if you can’t walk through it, Scotty.”

“You guys both realize I am hearing all of this, right?” Derek chimed in.

“Your point being?” Stiles asked.

“My _point being_ that if I can overhear it, Kira and Mrs. Yukimura probably can, too.”

Stiles hesitated and looked over at Scott. “Scott?”

Scott was grinning. “Yep.” He turned the computer to show Kira and her mother sitting at the table with Scott. “Say hi.”

“Oh god,” Stiles covered his face with both hands. He peeked out between his fingers at the two women. “Umm… hi?”

Kira was fighting back a snicker, but her mother was the poster-child of not impressed. “Mr. Hale,” she deadpanned.

“So… uh… about my memory problem…”

“Yes, about that,” Mrs. Yukimura said, “though I think we may need to look into erasing memories after what we heard…”

“Oh, Mom,” Kira chided, “it wasn’t that bad.”

Mrs. Yukimura cracked a smile. “One of the benefits of being an elder is making young people squirm. Don’t deny me, honey.”

Stiles snorted. “That right there, that’s where Rene gets it.”

“Oh, trust me, we know,” Kira replied, kind of like it was something that kept her up at night.

“If we could maybe get off the topic of my sex life and back to the fact I’m missing seven years?” Stiles suggested.

“Of course,” Mrs. Yukimura agreed. “First, I need you to tell me what is the last thing you remember before the lapse? What were you doing, where were you, was anyone with you… every detail you can recall.”

“Okay… it was the end of my junior year of high school, and I was up crazy-late studying for a chemistry test I had the next day. Um, that was with Mrs. Sheridan – I don’t know if that matters. It was this monster exam, cumulative, and I was in panic mode. Uh… I was in my bedroom with my book and all my semester notes spread out everywhere. I had like five coffees and my eye was doing that twitchy thing when you slam back caffeine like a crazy person. I was home by myself – Dad had to work late. It was, I guess, three-thirty in the morning last time I remembered looking at the clock?”

Mrs. Yukimura nodded. “I’ll need to look up fall of that year and see if there were any significant celestial or natural events that might come into play. Do you remember what phase the moon was in that night?”

“Yeah, it was two days before the full moon. I remember because Scott was being all pre-that-time-of-the-month prissy and wouldn’t help me study.”

“Hey,” Scott objected off-screen.

“Suck it up, buttercup, she asked,” Stiles overrode.

“And had anything out of the ordinary happened that day? To you or in the town that you know of?” Mrs. Yukimura asked.

Stiles scowled as he tried to think back. It was Beacon Hills, so ‘out of the ordinary’ was kind of subjective.

His thoughts were interrupted when Derek spit into the sink. “Ugh! What _is_ that?”

“What?” Stiles turned.

Derek scowled into his cup. “This tea you had in the cupboard. It’s awful.”

“What tea? Oh my god, give me that!” When Derek brought over the box of tea bags, Stiles grabbed it and said, “Okay, off topic, but Kira, I have a bone to pick with you.”

“Me?” Kira blinked.

“ _Yes_! Because _this_ ,” he held up the box so she could see it, shaking it for emphasis, “this tea you gave me?, is the most disgusting thing I have _ever_ tasted in my _life_. Donkey piss would be better than this. I don’t know if I gave you shit for this already, but even if I did you deserve it again, because _Foulest Thing Ever_. Seriously.”

Kira looked bewildered, but Mrs. Yukimura was very intent. “Kira? You gave Stiles kesshu tea?”

“A long time ago, when…” Kira’s eyes widened, “when you were studying for that chem final, wasn’t it, Stiles?”

“Yeah, you said it would help me concentrate, but all it helped me focus on was the ass-crack-ballsacky taste of this tea. No, wait, all of those would taste better.”

“We don’t doubt you’re the authority on the subject,” Mrs. Yukimura stated drolly, “but we may have found the problem with your memory.”

Stiles gaped and looked at the tea in his hand. “What… _this_?”

Derek squawked and rushed to pour the rest of his cup down the drain.

“You gave me memory-wiping tea?” Stiles accused Kira.

“I didn’t! It _shouldn’t_ have done that. It really is for concentration! I drank it all the time when I was cramming for a test!”

“It’s fine for Kira. And it’s fine for humans.”

“What about werewolves?” Stiles asked, casting a wary look over at Derek.

“It’s harmless to them, too.”

“Okay, then what is it about _me_ that made it obliterate my life?”

“It’s not meant for emissaries.”

Stiles sat back uncertainly. “But… I’m not an emissary.”

“Just because you never cultivated the skills or underwent the training doesn’t change the fact you have the emissary’s spark.”

Well, shit.

“Oh my god, I did this! Stiles, I am so sorry!” Kira said miserably.

“You couldn’t have known,” Mrs. Yukimura assured, resting a hand on her daughter’s forearm. “The odds a kitsune would happen to give an emissary kesshu tea…”

Yeah, that really just reeked of Stiles’ luck more than anything. Kitsune were rare. Emissaries were rare. The chances one would give the other the exact kind of Japanese tea that would fuck everything up royal…

“It’s not your fault, Kira,” Stiles agreed. It wasn’t fair to blame Kira for the fact Stiles’ guardian angel was a slacker. “It never occurred to me to worry that I couldn’t drink it, just like you didn’t think it might be dangerous for me. Well, other than the taste. You should have warned me about that.”

Kira cracked a weak smile, even though she still looked on the brink of tears.

Derek came up, grabbed a chair, and sat next to Stiles to share the screen. “Does this mean we can find a way to reverse it now that we know the tea was responsible?”

“It should be possible to counteract the effect,” Mrs. Yukimura nodded. “The tea is meant to direct one’s energy inward, to a focal point that the mind can then tap into. But an emissary’s spark is too powerful. The energy deflects, and rather than inner focus, there is outward scatter. The mind gets lost.”

“For _seven years_ , though?” Because _god damn_ , even if it was a remote chance of that happening, consequences like that should at least warrant a sticker on the box. 

“The excessive caffeine would have exacerbated the effect. Instead of intensifying the focus, it intensified the scattering of mental energy.”

“So how…” Stiles started, then he rubbed at his temples with one hand like a pincher claw. “You know what, never mind. I’d ask, but I don’t think I want to know. Just tell me what I need to do to unscatter my chi or whatever the hell it is. I want my life back.” 

Derek’s hand came to his shoulder and squeezed.

Mrs. Yukimura left the table briefly, returning with a pen and paper. “I’m going to have Scott email you a list of ingredients and appropriate portions. Some are fairly common, others you’ll have to go to a spice shop or holistic pharmacy to get. And absolutely no ‘close enough’ substitutions. These instructions have to be followed _to the letter_.”

“Oh, believe me, I am not interested in half-assing the cure to this,” Stiles assured.

“Good. When you have all these and have combined the correct ratios, you’ll need to add it to a cup of the kesshu tea and drink it.”

“You mean I have to drink that tea again?” Stiles whined.

“Only if you want to counteract the effects from the first time you drank it,” Mrs. Yukimura said in a cool, no-nonsense tone.

“Fine,” Stiles replied. “ _Ass crack and ballsack_ ,” he muttered under his breath.

From the single lifted eyebrow of Mrs. Yukimura, Stiles suspected kitsune might have heightened hearing the same way werewolves did. But she didn’t comment on his assessment of her special tea. Instead, she continued, “I would recommend taking this at bedtime. The interaction with the added ingredients will make it act like a sedative. You should fall asleep within minutes of drinking it.”

“Wonderful,” Stiles said in a tone that implied it was anything but. “And when I wake up?”

“The effects of the kesshu tea should be gone.”

“That’s what I want,” Stiles nodded. And if that meant he had to drink the ass-crack-ballsack tea, well… he’d take one of the team.

Mrs. Yukimura passed her list of ingredients to Scott off-screen, then she regarded Stiles sympathetically. “I’m terribly sorry this happened to you, Stiles.” She cracked a wry smirk. “Our culture doesn’t seem to agree with you.” 

“Yeah, nogitsune in my head wreaking havoc and kitsune tea that wipes out nearly a decade of my memories. No offense, Mrs. Yukimura, but I am _never_ going to Japan.”

“There’s always the remote possibility Godzilla would turn out to be real the day you got there, I suppose,” she mused.

Stiles huffed out a quasi-laugh.

He didn’t start to feel real relief, though, until the email came through from Scott with the list of herbs he’d need to get and how to combine them into kesshu-tea antidote.

That’s when it started to feel real. Like he was going to fix this mess. He was going to get his life with Derek back.


	12. Chapter 12

He couldn’t sleep for his eagerness to get started on the concoction that would undo the damage to his scattered mental energy. He ended up leaving the house before sun-up, well before Derek left for work, to track down the ingredients, armed with a google print-out of all the herbal spice shops within an hour’s drive of Beacon Hills.

****************

Stiles was out all day driving around picking up ingredients. Most shops only had one or two of them, if they had any at all, but the proprietor usually had a guess on who else might have some of them, and Stiles would be off again. Stiles had accumulated quite a collection of herb and spice shop addresses by the time it started getting late.

Some of the ingredients were obscure, and he wouldn’t settle for ‘close enough’. He wasn’t risking his marriage on a botched cure with a remedy comprised of kinda-sorta-the-same-thing components. Some were expensive, only grown in Japan or under some rock on the shore of the Red Sea (or near enough as makes no matter). Some went by a different name in America, and it was like pulling teeth trying to get the shop owners to do the research and be one hundred percent _certain_ it was the same thing as what Stiles needed. More than one shop master was cursing Stiles’ pickiness before their business was concluded. Stiles hoped he never needed to do anything like this again, because he had a feeling he’d been blacklisted the minute he walked out the door of several places.

When he finally got home, road-weary and poorer but _victorious_ , it was nearly nine at night.

He took his purchases into the kitchen and laid them on the counter, next to the print-out of Scott’s email detailing the correct combinations thereof, and went searching for Derek.

Stiles found him in the office, holding two pieces of a dissembled crib out and trying to scowl it into assembling itself, Stiles could only assume. There was a changing table and matching dresser shoved toward the corner to make room for Derek to put together the crib. Or _attempt_ to put together the crib. Right now, in the matter of crib versus Derek Hale, the crib was winning.

Stiles had completely forgotten about Mrs. McCall bringing all the stuff over. Sue him, things got crazy.

“Hey,” he greeted.

Derek looked up. “Hey. Did you get everything you need?”

“Yep… it’s in the kitchen.” He stepped into the office. “Want some help with that?”

“God, _yes_. Mrs. McCall didn’t have any instructions for this, and it was so long ago that she took it apart that she wasn’t much help remembering how it went together.” Derek passed one piece of the crib to Stiles when he was close then he went conspicuously quiet. It said something about how much he’d bonded with Derek since he’d lost his memories that Stiles could tell Derek had something to say, he just didn’t know how to say it. So Stiles waited and sorted crib parts.

Finally, Derek cleared his throat. “I talked to Lydia.”

Stiles looked up at that.

“I told her we still want the baby.” Derek looked carefully at him. “We _do_ , right? I never really asked, I just assumed…”

“Yes, we still want the baby.”

“Even if…” Derek scowled, looking agitated. “Even if Mrs. Yukimura’s cure doesn’t work?”

Stiles froze. He hadn’t let himself entertain the thought that it wouldn’t. But Derek was right… they had to hope for the best, plan for the worst. That’s what responsible parents did.

“Even if it doesn’t work and I never get those memories back, yes, I still want to have a family with you.” Stiles gave a faint shrug. “You’ll just have to fill in the holes on things I don’t remember.” It sucked, it wasn’t ideal, but as far as compromises went it was one Stiles could totally live with.

“I promise,” Derek vowed.

Stiles leaned over and kissed him.

Then they set to work putting together the crib. It felt like they best not fail, because what hope did they have of creating a complex tea remedy if they couldn’t put together baby furniture?

But they did get the crib together. By eleven it was against the wall, flanked by the changing table with the dresser against the adjoining wall. It felt like being a kid and finishing decorating the Christmas tree and standing back with the lights off to admire the sparkle and glow.

Derek had his arm around Stiles’ waist, Stiles had his arm slung over Derek’s shoulders, both admiring a job well-done, when Stiles blurted, “Do we know what it is?”

“A crib…?”

“No, genius, the baby. Do we know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

Derek shook his head. “Does it matter?”

“No… just curious. What about names? Do we have any picked out?”

“Well, I’m pushing for your old first name. I think it could work for a boy or a girl.”

“Oh god, why do you hate our baby?” Stiles groaned. Then he looked thoughtfully at Derek. “What are the top contenders? Top three for boy and girl. Or,” Stiles drew up short, frowning, “no, don’t tell me. By tomorrow morning, I’ll remember.”

“You want to make the antidote now? It’s late. We could wait until tomorrow night.”

Stiles shook his head and dropped his arm from Derek’s shoulders. “I don’t want to wait that long. I want my life back _now_.” He’d lost enough time.

They were up another hour and a half making the weirdest thing ever put together in their kitchen. They double and triple-checked every item, every measurement, diligent and obsessive-compulsive to a painful degree. There was no margin for error in fixing Stiles.

The last thing they did was brew a cup of kesshu tea and added the antidote to it.

Warned it would drop Stiles like a bear shot in the ass with a tranquilizer dart, he took it into the bedroom and set it on his nightstand. Then he changed and got ready for bed. He was nervous. Tomorrow, everything would be different. Or back to normal, he supposed, but since he didn’t remember normal all he was anticipating was different.

He was happy now. He was missing seven years, but he was happy. It was daunting and scary to do anything to alter that state, even if the afterward would be better. The unknown would always be terrifying. Even if in a good way.

When Stiles came out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth, Derek was sitting on the bed on Stiles’ side, ShineGold in his lap.

Stiles laughed. “Are you going to read me a bedtime story?”

Derek looked down at the book Stiles was still in the middle of reading. He looked just as nervous as Stiles felt. “I… I didn’t want to just be sitting here watching you fall asleep waiting for it to work. I think I might lose it.”

“A watched pot never boils and all that,” Stiles nodded sagely. 

Derek smiled feebly and looked down at Stiles’ pillow, fingering the freshly-washed sheets with palpable anxiety.

Stiles chuckled awkwardly. “I feel like this is what our wedding night must have been like.”

Derek snorted. “Our wedding night was _nothing_ like this.”

“Yeah?” Stiles looked up. “Good memory?”

“One of our best.”

Stiles smiled. “Well, then I can’t wait to get it back.” And with that, he took a deep breath and climbed into bed. He crossed over Derek’s side to his own and stretched his legs out in front of him, ready to scoot down into a flat position. He eyed the tea with a grimace. “God, I wish the cure wasn’t almost worse than the disease.”

“Just drink it,” Derek chided.

“Easy for you to say, you never… oh wait, I guess you did taste it. Ass crack and ballsack, right?”

Derek sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Right, right… bigger picture, needs of the many, down the hatch, Mr. Spock.” Stiles reached for the cup.

Derek caught his hand and pulled him forward into a kiss. Stiles returned it greedily, threading the fingers of his free hand into Derek’s hair.

“For luck,” Derek said when they broke apart.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Stiles said softly, voice roughened from kissing his husband. “By morning, everything will be all right.”

Derek nodded slowly and released Stiles’ hand.

With that, Stiles picked up the cup, brought it to his lips, and after a steeling breath he started to gulp it down. He didn’t think it was possible, but it was even _fouler_ with the added crap in it, and his gag reflex tried to kick in more than once. But he kept drinking, face twisted in disgust and other hand smacking against the bed to communicate his unhappiness. He drank until he was tipping the dregs from the cup into his mouth.

“Eeeee _yuucck_!” Stiles slammed the cup down and covered his mouth. “Derek, if I throw up in the night, roll me over so I don’t choke.” Then he had the panicked thought that this might not work, what if he _died_?, and he went, “no, wait, I love you!” Probably nothing bad would happen, but _just in case_ , he didn’t want his last words spoken to Derek to be about vomit.

Derek brushed his thumb over Stiles’ cheek. “How do you feel?”

Stiles took stock. “Kinda… heavy, maybe? Fuzzy. Gettin’ kinda sleepy.”

“Lay down.”

“M’kay.” Stiles scooted and shuffled so he could lay down on his back, and the encroaching nothing of sleep was suddenly looming. Wow, that was fast.

Derek opened ShineGold to Stiles’ bookmark and started to read. “In his dreams, he was not Deuar. He knew that wasn’t unusual in itself; Rhin told him about many of her dreams where she was someone other than herself. And yet, he knew his were different. He dreamed he leaned over tight against a racing Erquin’s shoulders, the animal’s back coated with tacky red blood. His and the Erquin’s. He was dying, he knew it…”

Stiles wanted to say ‘ha ha, real funny, Derek’ for the chapter he picked. Talking about someone dying. But then, Derek didn’t really pick it. That’s where Stiles left off. And it was hard to hold a thought, anyway. His mind was shutting down, dragged forcibly into sleep.

He never found out if dream-Deuar died before his world went black.


	13. Chapter 13

“Stiles… Stiles… _Stiles_!”

That was clearly a voice telling him to wake up, but his brain and body were telling him that was the last thing they wanted to do. Two to one. Go away. Stiles sleeping.

But insistent voice became insistent hand on his shoulder, and life sucked and Stiles just wasn’t going to get any decent sleep, was he?

Stiles mumbled and shifted in bed. “Five more minutes…” he pleaded with voice and hand of sleep-stealer.

“No can do, kiddo. You’re already going to be late for school.”

Late for _what_?

Stiles’ eyes flew open and he found himself looking up at his father, dressed for work and leaning over him in bed to shake his son awake.

Stiles’ brain was racing, gears spinning and not catching. His father was in his house? In his and Derek’s bedroom? Why was he talking about _school_? 

And why did he look so _young_?

System error. Does not compute. 

“S…school?” Stiles stammered, supremely confused.

“Yes, school. That institution of learning you attend every day? Come on, get your butt out of bed. You have that chemistry test today, so you better get the lead out.” John turned around and left the room.

Stiles gaped after him, eyes tracking from the bedroom door over to the corkboard on his wall and the dangling pieces of red, yellow, and green yarn hanging from push pins. No sailboat.

With a start, Stiles jackknifed up into a sitting position. In the process, he knocked his chemistry book and notes off the bed onto the floor. Stiles stared at them stupidly, thoughts racing so fast they were crashing into each other, train cars all over his gray matter, _holy shit, what the hell_ …

Stiles scrambled out of bed and ran to the bathroom.

He found himself staring at a teenage version of Stiles in the mirror. Gawky and hair too long and shoulders too thin and a pimple on his chin.

“Oh god,” Stiles croaked, looking down at his hands. Nimble, young hands. Smeared with pen ink and neon highlighter from a late study session. And no wedding ring.

Stiles yanked off his t-shirt and stared in the mirror at the place on his chest where the scar should be. It wasn’t there. Unmarred skin was reflected back at him. “ _Shit shit shit_ …” Stiles chanted as he staggered over to the toilet and sat down on the closed lid. He put his head in his hands and tried not to go into a full-blown panic attack. He could feel himself shaking.

He was back in 2014. He was a kid again. He wasn’t married to Derek, they didn’t have a house, they weren’t adopting a baby, it was _gone_. 

Or had never been real.

No, it couldn’t be a dream. It couldn’t be. It was too fucking real.

“The tea,” Stiles muttered, and he was up and rushing to his room in a heartbeat.

The cup of kesshu tea was on his nightstand, remnants in the bottom gone cold overnight.

“Stiles!” his father called from downstairs. “If I have to come up there again I’m pouring ice water on you!”

Stiles grabbed his backpack and shoved his school notes and the box of tea into it. “I’m coming!” He threw on the nearest clothes he could find and bolted down the stairs two at a time.

“Good luck on your test!” John called as he flew out the front door.

Stiles was not taking a damn chemistry test.

*******************

Mrs. Yukimura was clearly surprised to see Stiles at her door when she answered. She blinked at him a second, thrown. “Stiles.” She looked past him, maybe looking for the sheriff. “Shouldn’t you be at school? What are you doing here?”

Stiles reached into his backpack and pulled out the box of tea. “Kira gave me this.” Stiles held his breath and tried to keep his hand from shaking. If Mrs. Yukimura acted like it was just tea, then he didn’t know what he’d do. It couldn’t all be some test-stress-induced dream, it couldn’t be.

Her eyes widened. She took the box from him. “You didn’t drink any of it, did you?” she asked, clearly alarmed.

Her alarm was _great_. It meant he wasn’t crazy.

“Yes, I did.”

Mrs. Yukimura blanched. “Come inside.”

When she’d invited him to sit on the couch, she left him a moment to go into the kitchen. She came back with a cup of tea that she offered him. He eyed it suspiciously.

“It’s just chamomile,” she assured. Then she hefted the kesshu tea box in her hand. “Not like this.”

“It’s kesshu tea, right?” Stiles asked. He could only know that if it had been real.

Mrs. Yukimura nodded. She looked at him shrewdly. “This isn’t meant for you.”

“Because I’m an emissary, yeah, I know. _Now_.” He toyed with the handle of the tea cup a moment, then he looked up at her. “Was it real?”

She walked over to the chair opposite the couch and sat down, placing the tea box on the coffee table. “What happened?”

“I woke up in 2021. I was married. I was about to become a father.”

Mrs. Yukimura brought a hand to her face.

“Was it real?”

“Well, that depends on your definition.”

Stiles growled.

Mrs. Yukimura quirked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t say that to be evasive. I can’t fully answer that because it becomes a tangled matter of time travel and physics that even I don’t understand. Is it real? Well, doesn’t having some knowledge of those events now change them? I can’t say if they _are_ real, or still _will be_ , but I can tell you they _were_. You weren’t dreaming or hallucinating, in any case.”

Stiles sat back on the couch. “So I was living my life seven years from now?”

Mrs. Yukimura nodded. “Or, at least, your life seven years from now before you knew anything about your life seven years from now.”

“Okay, let’s just leave out the crazy time-travel double-talk. I get it, all right? What I do now changes what I saw.”

Mrs. Yukimura conceded with an upturned hand gesture.

“You said I’d get my memories back,” Stiles accused her, feeling lost.

Mrs. Yukimura looked dubious. “I can’t imagine I said that… I might have said the antidote would counteract the effects.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I thought that meant restore my memories and you know it! Or will know it. Will have known it. Oh god, my head hurts!”

“Stiles… I didn’t – or won’t – tell you that to mislead you. This is an unpredictable phenomenon. It has occurred in so few instances, and with great variability. I told you – or will tell you – the truth. The antidote _may_ have simply filled in your memories. Or it could have taken you back to the start. There’s no way to know how the antidote will work, only that it _will_.”

“You should have told me that!” Stiles almost yelled.

Mrs. Yukimura looked at him strangely. “Would it have changed your actions?”

“Yes! If I’d known there was a chance I’d lose everything, I wouldn’t have taken it!”

“But you didn’t lose anything. None of what you experienced has happened yet. So it can still happen. Maybe not exactly like it did the first time, but in a different variation.”

Stiles looked down bitterly at the tea box on the table. “Can the kesshu tea send me back? If I drink it again, will I wake up at home _with my husband_?” He looked sharply at her, daring her to say he shouldn’t want that.

“I’m afraid it won’t… not once you’ve taken the antidote to it. The counteractive effects are permanent.” As if sensing what Stiles was about to ask, she hastened to explain, “Your center of mental energy exists in a place beyond the confines of time – even though you drank the antidote in the ‘future’, it has warded you against the kesshu effect in the present. You could drink all the kesshu tea you want now, it wouldn’t do anything to you.”

“Well, besides make me blow chunks,” Stiles snarled.

There was an uncomfortable silence before Mrs. Yukimura spoke. “Stiles… I’m sorry. Kira shouldn’t have given you this, but she didn’t know what it would do to you. I’m sorry you had to go through what you did.”

“I’m not sorry I lived it,” Stiles argued, “I just want to go back. Is there _anything_ …?”

“That future doesn’t exist to go back _to_. You’ve already done things differently. And maybe these choices wouldn’t impact that future, but you don’t know that for sure. And if they _did_ …” Mrs. Yukimura pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is why emissaries drinking kesshu tea is such a disaster. Those who have been trained know not to touch it.”

“So it’s my fault for not going to Jedi emissary school?”

“It’s no one’s fault.” She sighed. “Well, maybe mine for not thinking this could happen. I knew you had the spark, and I knew you were untrained. I should have been protecting you. I’ve failed you more than once, Stiles, and for that I’m sorry.”

Stiles clutched his backpack straps, just for something to cling to. “So basically I’m stuck here?”

She gave him a peculiar look for the question. “ _Here_ is where you’re supposed to be. This is your proper time and place.”

It didn’t feel like it.

*******************

It was hard to hide from people when your best friend was a werewolf.

“Hey, man… you weren’t in school today,” Scott said as he walked up to Stiles, clamped a hand down on his shoulder, and joined him at the park picnic table. They hadn’t come here since they were kids and actually played on the playground, so Stiles thought he might be safe here.

No such luck. Of course Scott followed his nose right to him.

“Yeah, wasn’t feeling up to school today,” Stiles responded. What else could he say?

“Are you sick?” Scott asked, worried. “You do look kind of ragged out.”

“I had a rough night.” It was kind of true.

“Are you still having nightmares?” Scott looked grim. “I thought those stopped once the nogitsune…” Scott couldn’t say more. It caught in his throat. And why wouldn’t it? That was still fresh here. Stiles’ body still ached from it and Scott’s mourning period for Allison Argent was far from over.

But Stiles looked at Scott expecting a beard and a daughter.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Stiles hedged. Because what if he couldn’t talk about it? What if telling Scott things about the future meant he didn’t marry Kira? What if it ended up Stiles’ fault Rene was never born?

He couldn’t be the dynamite in his friends’ lives. He’d been sitting at this table for _hours_ thinking about time and past and future and present and the fucking butterfly effect – the one in chaos theory, not the movie – and concluding that he couldn’t tell anyone he’d had a peek into a possible future. It was too dangerous. Stiles couldn’t be responsible for all of their futures happening or not happening right.

Although he might talk to Isaac… 

And he would _definitely_ warn Malia. He _had_ to. He’d be a shit-stain of a human being if he didn’t try to stop someone from being kidnapped by Peter Hale. But even that wasn’t certain. What if Peter did kidnap her, and managed to hold on to her for a week, then she ripped his throat out and ran away? She could have been happily living her life under a new identity while Peter was bones in a field or rotting in a ditch, and that would be fine. Happy ending.

It was too hard to know what to do.

“You missed the chem final,” Scott was saying, snapping Stiles out of his thoughts. “It was a _bitch_. Are you going to ask Mrs. Sheridan to let you make it up?”

“Guess so.” He did need to pass chemistry, but it seemed so far from a priority right now. He should be thinking of baby names.

“Stiles, you’re worrying me… I get if you don’t want to talk about it, but… how can I help?”

Maybe he could let Scott deal with Isaac, and he could handle Malia, and that would be all the meddling Stiles would do. That might be too much or not enough, he didn’t know, but those two he couldn’t ignore. Not in good conscience. 

“Can you be nicer to Isaac?”

That was clearly not what Scott had been expecting. “Can I… what? What’s this got to do with Isaac?”

“Nothing, really, I just… he doesn’t have anyone right now. You’ve got me and your mom and Kira, but Isaac… He just shouldn’t feel alone. He’s pack.”

Scott looked consternated, and Stiles got it. Scott and Isaac had both been in love with Allison. They were both raw gaping wounds when it came to her, and she was the biggest thing they shared in common (besides the werewolf status). They reminded each other of her, and that made them lash out in pain. Asking Scott to be nicer to Isaac was asking him to not mind the hurt he felt when he was around the guy. But Stiles asked, so after a conflicted moment Scott relented. “Okay. If that’s what you want – if you think that will help – I’ll try harder with Isaac.”

“Good… that’s good… thank you.” Stiles sighed then, a little of the weight on his shoulders lifting.

Maybe that’s what he needed to do. Put Isaac on the radar and warn Malia and then just keep his head down and try not to mess anything up. 

And avoid Derek. Stiles had no idea how he could face Derek right now.

But the other stuff didn’t sound too hard.

And really, it was all he could do, so it better be enough.


	14. Chapter 14

It was a difficult week, but Stiles got through it. By the skin of his teeth, it felt like, but he did. He made up his chemistry final, though his final grade wasn’t going to dazzle anybody. He put in a little more effort to talk to Isaac, despite Isaac’s growly-bitey-wounded-animal attitude. And he warned Malia about Peter.

_That_ had been an uncomfortable conversation. Because Stiles couldn’t tell her Peter was her biological father – who knew how that would blow up in their faces – and he couldn’t tell her _how_ he knew she was in danger. Like anyone would believe Stiles being able to tell the future if he tried, anyway. Basically he was telling a girl who’d been through enough trauma in her life that some old guy she didn’t know wanted to abduct her so she best watch herself. She was looking at Stiles like maybe he did belong in Eichen House by the time he was finished, and he figured he kind of deserved that. He’d think the same thing in her place.

It was maddening not knowing if she’d even heed his words. If she would even think twice about crossing a dark street alone. He wanted to shake her and tell her it was _real_ , Peter was a threat, but he couldn’t. He had to arm her with the information and hope for the best.

Which sucked.

Stiles was one hundred percent done with dealing with people by the week’s end. Everything he said or did, he worried it was unduly influenced by events he shouldn’t rightly know about. It was stressing him out. He wondered if descending into hermitdom was an option at his age.

That’s why Stiles was holed up in his room Saturday night, having turned down Scott’s invitation to hang out. Scott was still concerned about him, though whether it was about the nogitsune or his latest funk, Stiles didn’t really know. Because his life was just that awesome that he had multiple reasons to be depressed.

Stiles wanted to block it all out. Thus the reason he was lying in bed, laptop on his stomach playing music, and earbuds shoved into his ears. His eyes were closed so he didn’t even have to see his room. Because that was wrong, too. There should be a painting of a pack of wolves on the wall. 

He nearly had a heart attack when someone snatched the laptop off his stomach and it yanked the earbuds out of his ears. 

“ _Hey_ , what –” he protested, then his voice died in his throat when he looked up and saw Derek in his bedroom, laptop in hand and glaring down at Stiles.

A snare drum solo started inside his ribcage.

“Do you want to tell me why Malia Tate came to the loft to see my uncle with this idea he was planning on kidnapping her that she apparently got from you?”

“She _what_?!” Stiles leapt to his feet.

Derek tossed Stiles’ laptop on to his bed. “She came to see Peter. She was _livid_. I had to separate them.”

“I told her to stay _away_ from him! What the hell was she thinking?”

“What the hell were _you_ thinking?”

“Where is she now?” Stiles insisted. “Malia… _is she okay_?”

“She’s fine… I dropped her off at Scott’s before I came here.”

“Oh thank god,” Stiles sat down on his bed, relief washing through him. At least someone was with her, watching her. Scott would keep her safe.

“Now you tell me what possessed you to tell Malia that Peter wants to abduct her.” It wasn’t a request. It was an _order_.

“Because he _does_ ,” Stiles countered.

Instead of deny it or proclaim such an idea unthinkable, Derek frowned thoughtfully. “What makes you so sure?”

“I can’t… I can’t tell you that, you just have to trust me. He’s a threat to her, and I couldn’t do _nothing_. I _had_ to warn her.”

Derek eyed him, and Stiles wanted to cry. His husband would have believed him, but he didn’t have that relationship with this Derek. This Derek probably thought Stiles was cracked, broken from the nogitsune that had so recently been in residence.

“Look,” Derek began, “I get you being protective of your little girlfriend –”

“She’s _not_ my girlfriend!”

Derek went quiet then. Stiles just wanted the encounter to end. He was going to ruin everything.

Without a word, Derek went over to Stiles’ desk, grabbed his chair, and brought it toward the bed. He positioned it facing Stiles and sat down, looking intently at him. Stiles swallowed. It was too close and too far away at the same time.

“I know my uncle is dangerous,” Derek said lowly, uncharacteristically honest and very much the opposite of defensive at that moment. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him, because I don’t trust him. It’s the only reason I’ve let him stay – I want him where I can watch him.” He sighed and looked down at his hands. Like he was thinking about what he should do with them. He returned his gaze to Stiles. “Are you _sure_ about this?”

“I am serious as a heart attack. Peter is going to kidnap her.” He looked Derek in the eye, beseeching him. “I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t tell you how I know, but if you’ve ever trusted me about anything, trust me on this.”

Derek studied him for a long time. Stiles tried to swallow the heart lodged in his throat. 

Eventually, Derek’s expression hardened again and he sat back. “You should have known better than to tell Malia. She’s still too feral. You show her a threat and she’s not going to back down from it. She’s a predator.”

“Then what was I supposed to do?” Stiles asked, incredulous.

“You should have come to me.”

He couldn’t go to Derek. He hadn’t been sure the sight of him wouldn’t break his heart. He wasn’t sure it wasn’t doing that right now.

“I’ll handle this,” Derek said, standing up to leave, “but next time you plan on dropping a disaster in my lap, maybe warn me about it first?” His voice carried a hint of a growl.

Stiles felt his body trembling.

Derek paused then. He stepped forward and leaned down to look closer at Stiles.

Stiles panicked just a little and jumped to his feet so he could put some distance between them.

Derek’s eyes tracked him, expression confused. “Your heart’s going crazy… are you…?” Derek’s eyebrows rose. “You’re _scared_ of me.”

“I’ve always been scared of you,” Stiles argued feebly.

“Not like this.” Derek frowned. “Are you okay?”

Stiles opened his mouth, but no words would come out. He struggled to breathe for a minute, then he just looked at Derek. No, he was not okay. He was supposed to be married. They were adopting a baby.

And Derek had no idea.

He must have looked bad, because Derek got uncomfortable and cleared his throat. “Should you be left alone?”

Stiles forced out a laugh. “Why, you going to stay and read me a bedtime story?” The words came out before he could stop them. He remembered Derek sitting at his bedside reading ShineGold to him, voice steady and soothing and _home_.

Derek’s eyes landed on Stiles’ ceiling, as if praying for the restraint not to bludgeon him.

“Don’t worry about me,” Stiles offered, trying for cavalier and missing it by a mile.

“You make that literally impossible,” Derek returned. Then he sighed. “I have to go. Don’t…”

“Don’t do anything stupid?” Stiles guessed. “Come on, this is me we’re talking about.”

“I know.” 

Then Derek was crawling out Stiles’ bedroom window, and Stiles was backing up until he hit a wall. He slid down to sit on the floor, fighting to control his lungs, clenching his hands into fists.

It took all his willpower not to climb out the window right after Derek.

********************

_Derek: come to the loft at 6_

Stiles stared at the text message from Derek on his phone two days later, not trusting his eyes.

It wasn’t really an invitation though, it was a command, and Stiles numbly wrote back:

_Stiles: ok_

When he showed up at six o’clock with his backpack slung over one shoulder, he wondered what the medical odds were of someone his age working themselves into a cardiac arrest. He banged on the metal door and barely heard the sound over his own heart as he tried to tamp down on the flight reflex.

Too late now, because the door slid open and Derek was looking back at him.

“Hey,” Stiles squeaked, fidgeting.

“Hi,” Derek gave him a patented ‘what is wrong with you’ frown, then stepped back. “Come on in.”

Stiles walked inside and Derek shut the door behind him.

Immediately, Stiles looked around for Peter. It was instinct. When you walk into a viper pit, you look for snakes.

“Where’s Peter?”

Derek stepped past him into the loft. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” Stiles blinked as he followed Derek.

Derek sat down on his couch and regarded Stiles a moment. Stiles felt like he was at an audition, stuck in the spotlight, all eyes on him. He fiddled with the fabric adjustment strap to his backpack. It was worn and frayed from how often it fell victim to Stiles’ restless hands.

“Scott, Isaac, and I ran him out of town yesterday.”

Stiles’ hands froze. He stared at Derek, eyes wide. “You did?”

Derek nodded.

“Because… because of what I said?”

Derek looked pointedly at him. That was a ‘yes, but don’t make me say it’ if Stiles ever saw one.

“I…” Stiles stammered, “I didn’t think you’d do that just because I… I don’t know what to say.”

Derek scowled. “Stiles, you’re… you’re possibly the most irritating human being I have ever met. You talk too much, and you never stop moving, and half the time I want to throw you out a window. But you have this thing about protecting people. You put yourself in danger to help people you don’t even know. And if you _do_ know them – if they’re a friend – you’re kind of frightening. Your loyalty to your friends is like… a werewolf’s loyalty to its pack.” Derek shook his head at the thought. “The other night, you were so sure about Peter. That was enough for me.” 

Stiles was stunned.

“Besides,” Derek added sourly, “when she was here challenging my uncle, Malia said that you were the one who warned her about him. There was _something_ in Peter’s eyes that I… I knew you wouldn’t be safe from him.”

He’d done it to protect _Stiles_.

That managed to uproot Stiles’ feet from the spot they were in. He moved to the couch and sat down on the other end, setting his backpack on the floor. “So you called in the troops and chased him off?”

“Scott and Isaac weren’t very eager to help me at first when I told them I was going to kick Peter out of town,” Derek growled, and Stiles got it. He’d heard this story from the backend, of the pack flying apart and Derek alone at ground zero. “They didn’t get on board with the idea until I told them it was yours.”

“But it wasn’t… not really.”

Derek shrugged. “I took some liberties. Are you saying you _didn’t_ want Peter out of town?”

“I want him dead, but you can’t always get what you want.”

Derek snorted. 

A not-completely-uncomfortable silence fell between them.

“So…” Stiles started, “why did you ask me to come over? You could have just texted me about Peter.”

The question made Derek look uncertain. “There was something weird going on the other night. Something was off with you.” He shrugged, failing to fake indifference. “I guess I wanted another shot at figuring it out.”

“Can’t resist a puzzle, Mr. Hale?” Stiles teased. When Derek didn’t take the bait, he cleared his throat. “So then I guess you’re still eavesdropping on my ticker.”

“I know the beatings of your heart, and this is…” Derek canted his head to catch the sound better, “this is new. I don’t know what it means.”

That was an honest answer, at least, so Stiles did his best to reciprocate. “I’ve been working through some stuff lately.”

That earned him a look from Derek. “Stuff. About _me_?”

Oh, boy. Talk about a loaded question. Stiles looked pointedly at him. “You know if you ask and I lie you’ll be able to tell I’m lying, so think hard before you ask.”

Derek blinked at the blunt statement, opened his mouth… then shut it.

He had to suspect. Between Stiles’ heart and his scent, he had to be leaking clues. But mercifully Derek didn’t say anything.

And he didn’t throw Stiles out.

“I got you something,” Stiles broke into the tense silence. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a brand-new copy of ShineGold. He handed it to Derek, who took the book with a puzzled frown.

“You got me a book?” 

“I have a feeling you’ll like it.”

Derek thumbed through the pages. “Okay. Thanks?”

Stiles laughed. “You’d think no one ever gave you a present before.”

“It’s been a long time,” Derek conceded as he turned the book over in his hands. The last time someone gave Derek a gift was probably before the fire. That made Stiles want to hug the guy. Because he _knew_ Derek liked physical affection. He knew Derek was a cuddler underneath that growly werewolf exterior.

But they weren’t there yet.

Maybe one day, though.

“I better get home,” Stiles said as he got up and shouldered his backpack.

Derek put ShineGold on the couch cushion beside him and stood to see Stiles out.

When he was standing outside Derek’s loft, Stiles turned and said in parting, “Thank you for trusting me.”

One corner of Derek’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile. “Just don’t get used to it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Stiles smiled. “I’ll see you later.”

***************

Stiles couldn’t sleep. He was too keyed up. He was high from his time at Derek’s. It had only been a conversation, granted, but Stiles was drunk on it. Had there been sweeping declarations of love? No. But Derek had gathered an (albeit small) army and thrown his own uncle out of town because he trusted Stiles. Because he wanted to keep Stiles safe. It probably didn’t hurt that Derek didn’t trust Peter as far as he could throw him in the first place, but still. He’d been putting up with the psycho for years, biding his time and keeping watch, but when Stiles said ‘enough’, Derek tossed him.

It was already different from the beginning, when Derek had sided with his uncle. Now push came to shove, and Derek picked Stiles.

It was their weird backwards relationship where they trusted each other with their lives, but wouldn’t say they were friends.

Stiles hoped that would change. He knew how good they could be.

On a whim, Stiles grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand and texted:

_Stiles: what are you doing?_

He maybe kind of held his breath until the phone dinged with an incoming text.

_Derek: reading_

Stiles grinned.

_Derek: why are you awake?_

_Stiles: can’t sleep_

He tapped his finger against the side of the phone waiting for a response.

_Derek: any reason?_

He probably meant like a nogitsune or a kanima or homicidal hunters, but Stiles would just pretend it was more than that. He was going to act like Derek cared. It was late and he was going to be idealistic for a hot minute, god damnit.

_Stiles: brain won’t stop talking_

He imagined Derek’s chuckle.

Stiles debated a moment before sending his next text.

_Stiles: we should go on a road trip sometime_

_Derek: you mean the pack?_

_Stiles: no_

_Stiles: you and me_

Stiles chewed on his lip anxiously. Was that too much? Too soon? It probably was. Shit. He was going to blow it. He was going to send Derek running for the hills. 

As the seconds crawled by and his phone rested inert in his hands, he felt that familiar tightening in his chest of his lungs threatening to seize up on him. He didn’t know what he’d do if he screwed this up. He’d had a good day today, and there was no denying it was because he’d seen hope of having the life he’d tasted. Not just having it for a few weeks, but for a lifetime.

He wasn’t sure what he’d do if that light at the end of the tunnel was ripped from him, if…

_Derek: maybe_

Stiles heaved out a sigh. It wasn’t exactly a marriage proposal, but it was Derek not dismissing out of hand the idea of him and Stiles hitting the road together. With Derek, Stiles would take what he could get. After all, this wasn’t the Derek that smiled against his skin. This wasn’t the Derek that pulled him close to nuzzle his neck, tickling Stiles with his stubble. Not yet. There was a lot of work left to do to tame that wolf.

But Stiles had an advantage. He knew it could be done. He’d seen it. Lived it. Breathed it. He’d tangled naked and happy with it.

_Derek: go to sleep stiles_

Stiles smiled and put his phone back on the nightstand. He turned over in bed and got comfortable, tugging up the nice blue covers and burrowing into his pillow with the magical sleep-inducing powers.

He honestly felt good. It was almost a strange sensation to him. When he’d woken up in his old life, as his old self, it had been a crushing disappointment. It felt like nothing but losses everywhere he looked. If future Derek’s accounts could be believed, this was the hardest time in Stiles’ life. And Stiles didn’t doubt that. The nogitsune had left him in ruins. No one knew how completely, because he pretended all the time. Most days, he felt more like the act than a person. He was a cheap veneer over wreckage.

But not today. Today, he actually felt good. And all because he’d held out his hand, and Derek didn’t bite him. Maybe there wasn’t as much ground to make up as he thought. Maybe Derek Hale wasn’t as wild as he seemed… or maybe he didn’t really want to be. Maybe they both wanted comfort and companionship, even now, but were too damaged to seek it. Maybe. _Maybe_.

Maybe Stiles could have that life he’d had but briefly. For keeps.

Before he drifted off, Stiles whispered into the darkness, like a schoolgirl with a crush, “I’m going to marry you someday, Derek Hale.”

It felt good to say it.

It would feel even better to make it happen.

END


End file.
